Corey Grant's Blog, page 2

Leadership Plus Mobile App

Leadership Plus

Are you a hard working and dedicated individual who just needs a little coaching advice to help you get over the top? Well don’t feel bad because we all do. You know what it takes to make things happen but you need a little extra leadership and business savvy advice to move yourself and your organization to the next level. Corey Grant is a Best Selling Author and offers his many years of experience as a Marine, Manager and Leader that has led organizations of all types, make ups and missions along with his strong willed drive and determination to make people better at achieving their goals. He is offering this information to you in his mobile application so that you have the same resources available to you as do many paying clients who need help to make their lives and careers launch just the way they’ve always planned it. LeadershipPlus will help to push you towards a higher level of performance? Are you ready? Do you have the desire? As a leaders we can never stop learning, leading, or listening to the advice and counsel of others. Be sure to download this app so you can continue to grow and network with the many other leaders from around the world that are taking advantage of this powerful information tool that is designed to help you become a more effective and influential leader within your network and community.  You can download the app using the QR Codes below or by visiting your devices app store and searching for “Leadership Plus”.

If you want to create your own mobile app <

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Leadership Plus Now on Your Smartphone

[image error]The Leadership Corporation and ComF5 have put together a great mobile app to put the power of leadership on your iphone, android or HTML5 device.  So whether you have a iPhone, iPad, Samsung Galaxy or other Android device you can use our mobile app to read our latest leadership article content, hear about our latest announcements, receive our inspirational push messages or ask us a question.

We also have features like a recommended reading list of leadership and business books and a QR Code reader when you need to scan a QR code to get more information on a product while on the go.

If you have a smartphone go to your designated app store and download the app “Leadership Plus” today.

If you are interested in building an app for your company you can find the ComF5 mobile app development site here.

 

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What Makes a Good Leader? Part 1 of 10 – Vision

Vision

Good leaders create a vision, a picture of the future, of where they want to take their organizations.  Effective leaders can improve both the quality and acceptance of their vision by partnering with peers, executive teams, key employees throughout the organization or outside consultants.  To get the best vision you need lots of ideas, and a core group of people to support what it is that you want to do.

Continue to follow our series on “What Makes a Good Leader” a ten part series.  You can also follow us on twitter to receive free updates.

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Inexpensive strategies to motivate and lead

Looking for ways to keep your staff interested and motivated to help your company to continue to grow? Here is a tip that can help mix things up a little and keep folks interested.

Keep a list of prizes, from small to large (everything from company logo items to tickets to special events to gift card to contributions to a favorite charity) that employees can choose from when they are recognized by a peer or a manager for an organizational contribution.  The value of the reward should be comparable to the value of the contribution.

Characteristics of a Good Team

Characteristics of a Good Team




High level of interdependence among members
Leader has good people skills and is committed to team approach
Each member is willing to contribute
A relaxed climate for communication
Members develop a mutual trust
The group and individuals are prepared to take risks
Group is clear about goals and establishes targets
Member roles are defined
Members know how to examine errors without personal attacks
The group has capacity to create new ideas
Each member knows he can influence the agenda

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Any teambuilding program or activity should be focused on strengthening one or more of these characteristics. This is a good checklist to determine whether or not a program will have value and lasting effects for your group.

Are There Situations in which Teamwork can be Detrimental?

YES! If the group is not primarily interdependent, then teamwork can be detrimental to the effectiveness of the group. For instance, teambuilding programs for salespeople will usually be counterproductive. Salespeople are typically independent and self-motivating. Therefore, teambuilding activities will be seen by the group as a waste of time. More effective training for group who is not interdependent would be communication training, leadership training, or other forms of personal development.

If the group is interdependent, but doesn’t realize that the actions of the individual affect the group, then teambuilding activities will also meet with resistance. This may occur in an organization where departments are autonomous. Department heads may begin to see themselves in competition with other department heads for resources including budgets, capital, and personnel. Before implementing teambuilding activities with this type of group, spend some time helping the group realize how interdependent they really are.

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5 Ways to Keep Your Job in a Down Economy

In today’s deadspin economy it almost seems expected that at some point your company is going to start cutting cost if they haven’t already.  Ususally, the biggest and most immediate cut comes in the area of labor.  Most small and even large companies try to reduce their labor cost by doing more with less people. HSBC one of the worlds largest mortgage bankers is selling off its US banking operations and heading back to Europe (who is not much better off than the US right now) to do its business where it started. Similar announcements have come from other financial institutions such as Credit Suisse, UBS and Goldman Sachs. 

With up to 30,000 jobs at stake in just one company’s operations what is a person to do to prevent the enevitable from happening.  Aside from the company completing a total shutdown and closing their doors forever here are some pointers for improving your rate of survival.

Build strong relationships – building strong relationships with management and staff who are decision makers is key.  After all, these are most likely the people who will decide who will stay and who will go, what positions are critical and what positions are duplicative.
Develop mulitple skills – in the old days we hired specialist to do one thing and one thing well, now we want smart generalist. If a manager on has a budget of a million dollars he can’t hire 50 people to do every task he needs done.  He may only be able to hire 15 - 20 good employees that can do 3 or 4 different task each.
Be more than willing – be willing to take less money, be willing to do task that you may consider beneath your pay grade, be willing to stay late or come in early.  Because managers are forced to do more with less they need to be surrounded with team players who believe in accomplishing the mission at any costs.  Even if that costs is personal sacrifice.
Make your boss look good – if your boss is trying to save their own job in this down economy then they are sure to keep their most trustworthy and dependable resources near them.  If your boss is continuosly getting pats on the back because of you, there is no reason to keep the guy who is causing them trouble instead of the person getting them accolades.
Be proactive – don’t wait until the layoffs are announced to try and save yourself.  Be proactive and reinvent yourself before their very  eyes so that management has time to evaluate your worth to the organization.  There is nothing worse than being unsure about a persons value but pressed to make a decision on a short deadline.  You don’t want to become an after thought because they were not able to validate the value of losing your talents.

Although most of these suggestions are not demonstrations of your technical prowess they are demostrations of your ability to fit into a very limited system of people and processes that work together to achieve maximum efficiency.

For additional tips on how to improve your leadership skills and elevate yourself higher into the management chain read the book “Lead to Succeed and You Won’t Manage to Fail.

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Coming Soon Leadership on Your Smartphone

Coming soon we will be launching a smartphone app for iPhones, iPads, Android devices and yes Blackberries.  The app will connect you to advice, recommendations, tips, Q&A’s, classes and other pertinent information to help you become a more effective leader.

If you have a smartphone and a copy of “Lead to Succeed and You Wont Manage to Fail” take a picture of you and your book or your Kindle and email it to promotions@leadershipcorporation.com with a caption for the pic.  We will include your pic in the photo gallery and send you a free copy of the app for your smartphone.

The app will allow fans to post pics of themselves leading, learning or listening to the counsel of other leaders and we want to see you our fans and our best selling book be the first pictures to post in the new app.

 

Internships: The Quickest Way To Gen Y Success

by Jamie Farrell

What is the one thing that ALL career advisors agree on?

Internships.

They agree that internships are the best way to:

Gain real world knowledge not being taught in classrooms
Greatly increase their sphere of influence through networking
Most important, make the entry-level candidate far more employable

In fact, a recent study by Gardner, Chow and Hurst for Michigan State states that 90% of direct-from-college hires will go to those with internship experience on their resume.

Let’s look at a couple real life examples: James “Scrappy” Stassen – currently the stage manager for Justin Bieber, managing all audio engineering and stage moves – major job for the biggest star in the world right now. Prior to that, he managed T-Payne’s multi-billion dollar tour. How did he get there?

Internships. Working with the right people, networking – yes – for free, with the right people, and being passionate enough about his love of music to go against the grain.

He could have gone to Harvard with his perfect SAT score; yet he chose to go to a school that focused solely on audio/music engineering. He tapped into the internship program, and now he is the most famous audio engineer and stage manager in the business. And he achieved this by age 29…starting through internships. (He’s also been my best friend for 20 years so I’m extremely proud of him!)

When I hit 23, I followed his lead. I loved marketing and loved innovation. I only wanted to do things that had never been done before. I knew that working for a start-up company was the KEY to learning and moving up quickly. I kept my full time job and also accepted an internship at a start-up called Education Connection.

I worked for free in the beginning, and the education I received from that internship was worth two Ivy League college degrees. By 25, I was making six figures; all thanks to internships.

As I’ve been speaking with career experts, I’ve been studying and looking for one common denominator that leads to success. All data points to two things: start-up experience and internships.

I just happened to be lucky. I didn’t know this at the time, but it was the path I chose. Now it’s time to impart this information to others and guide them in finding their passion, and finding it quickly.

So I set about some research and due diligence. I did some Internet research and found that most of the internship sites were frustrating to me.

I could see the positions offered for interns, especially at the Fortune 500s were all the types of jobs that “sound good,” but I knew they would be the type where these interns were doing nothing but copying papers and other busy work. It may look decent on a resume if you get a great company, but minimal learning takes place.

Then I came upon a site called YouTern. I was amazed. It was a site targeting internships for start-up, entrepreneurial companies. The internships offered were awesome. There were no copying papers; these interns were thrown directly into the proverbial fire. I love it.

Being a “connector”, I reached out to owner Mark Babbitt. I asked how his team came upon this idea. He explained: For our company, and for our partners and customers, we went to the Internet to find entrepreneurial-minded, passionate intern candidates. As lifetime entrepreneurs and mentors ourselves, we didn’t want the ‘I’m just riding out the summer’ type of interns; we wanted those who were ready to contribute now – to really step up. Those who would dive head first into the shallow end of the pool, knowing they would go on to amazing careers. When there was no resource available that even came close, we often found ourselves swearing at the browser. Then we said, ‘Wait… there is NO resource available!’ And we set out to build YouTern – a true first-to-market opportunity – when we didn’t think there were any of those left.” As this blog talks about personal and professional growth, it would be a disservice to not introduce you to this service (and it’s free!). For Gen Y, this is your site; you’ll feel at home and the internships are for companies like United by Blue, GenJuice and even Marvel Entertainment (want to intern for Wolverine?), plus hundreds of other start-ups in Silicon Valley, Orange County, Austin and New York.

I also saw that YouTern also posts internships at change-oriented non-profits – perfect for the Millennial mindset of social responsibility.

For those of you who are a bit older, two things:

1) You probably have children – this is made for them. Introduce them to it. No need to “push it”… they will engage in the community themselves. The site is so engaging that the average site stay is over 20 minutes; phenomenal user experience.

2) You may even want to look at it for yourself; for your company to acquire interns of the Gen Y intelligence, ambition and innovation sector.

As Mr. Babbitt said to me, “Entrepreneurial internships are proverbial “win-win”. The intern gains incredible hands-on experience – and perhaps a life-long mentor – at a dynamic start-up. At the same time, the company extends bandwidth through highly-qualified, technically-savvy contributors.”

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10 Ways To Improve Your Customer Service

1. Stay in contact with customers on a regular basis. Offer them a free e-zine subscription. Ask customers if they want to be updated by e-mail when you make changes to your Web site. After every sale, follow-up with the customer to see if they are satisfied with their purchase.

2. Create a customer focus group. Invite ten to twenty of your most loyal customers to meet regularly. They will give you ideas and input on how to improve your customer service. You could pay them, take them out to dinner or give them free products.

3. Make it easy for your customers to navigate on your web site. Have a “FAQ” page on your Web site to explain anything that might confuse your customers. Ask them to fill out an electronic survey to find out how make your web site more customer friendly.

4. Resolve your customers complaints quickly and successfully. Answer all e-mail and phone calls within an hour. If possible, you the owner of the business, personally take care of the problem. This will show your customers you really care about them.

5. Make it easy for your customers to contact you. Offer as many contact methods as possible. Allow customers to contact you by e-mail. Hyperlink your e-mail address so customers won’t have to type it. Offer toll free numbers for phone and fax contacts.

6. Make sure employees know and use your customer service policy. Give your employees bonuses or incentives to practice excellent customer service. Tell employees to be flexible with each individual customer, each one has different concerns, needs and wants.

7. Give your customers more than they expect. Send thank you gifts to lifetime customers. E-mail them online greeting cards on holidays or birthdays. Award bonuses to your customers who make a big purchase.

8. Always be polite to your customers. Use the words your welcome, please, and thank you. Be polite to your customers even if they are being irate with you. Always apologize to your customers should you make a mistake. Admit your mistakes quickly and make it up to them in a big way.

9. Reward customers a point for every one dollar they spend. Let’s say customers can get a free computer for 300 points. That means customers will spend $300 dollars on your products and services to get enough points to get the free computer.

10. Build strong relationships with your customers. Invite them to company meetings, luncheons, workshops or seminars. Create special events for your customers like parties, barbecue’s, dances etc. This will make them feel important when you include them in regular business operations and special events.

© 2004 Larry Dotson

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How to Be a Good Leader During a Recession

Recessions necessitate an extra focus on tasks and results, but people should not be ignored; after all, you lead people, not results. Here are three tips for handling your people well in a recession:

Be open and honest. Share as much information as you can. Talk to people even when there is no concrete news to share. Give people regular opportunities to discuss what’s going on and ask questions.
Encourage and motivate. Don’t assume that your people are grateful that they have jobs. Show them that you appreciate their efforts, especially if they are working harder because of the recession. Give them positive feedback and extra help as needed.
Offer training and development. These programs are a good investment in your company’s future and show people that you care about their long-term career prospects.




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