Becky Robinson's Blog, page 47

Lessons from the Rice Chefs of Morimoto Asia

When my daughter, her friend, and I dined at Morimoto Asia in Disney Springs recently, we did a few things backwards.

As our server, Roberto, prepared to give me the bill, we asked if we could have the warm, wet cloths that the diners adjacent to us had received for cleaning their hands. “Yes,” he said, “you can, but in the Japanese tradition it is more typical to use the warm cloths to clean your hands as you prepare to eat sushi.”

We had followed the lead of the diners adjacent to us, who had seen the diners next to them get towels, and asked for their own. Apparently none of us fully understood the Japanese tradition of oshibori (but we still enjoyed the warm towels).

Our mis-timed request for the towels was not the only thing we didn’t fully understand that evening.

Behind The Scenes

After he had cleared our plates, Roberto asked me about one other component of my meal.

Roberto to me: “Did you notice anything different about the rice?”

Me: “It was brown instead of white?” (I didn’t think that was the case — I had noticed the option on the menu to order brown rice sushi instead of white rice sushi, and had not chosen the brown rice option.)

Roberto: “No.”

Stumped, I gave up.

Roberto began an explanation that held me spellbound and left me thinking as much about a team player I had never seen as I had thought about the server, the restaurant’s greeters, or the manager who paid a visit to our table.

He explained that Morimoto puts a priority on how its rice is prepared and specially polished, that the rice is the first matter of business each day.

The first position a Morimoto food preparer has is “rice.” Just rice. The people who prepare the rice spend roughly two years in the role, making sure the rice that is incorporated into the establishment’s sushi is high quality, and polished to perfection.

Once someone has proven themselves by competently handling their responsibilities for rice, the next step is to cut fish. At this step in a cook’s career, they are not within sight of the restaurant’s patrons at all. Having proven themselves with their proficiency at rice, they are given additional responsibilities to prepare the fish which will be used to create sushi.

After another period of one to two years, the cook is allowed to work within sight of the patrons, preparing sushi. However, they are not allowed to interact with the patrons at all.

The highest level of responsibility is to work at the sushi bar, in a capacity that encourages interacting with the patrons.

The Efforts We Don’t Recognize

After we paid our bill and moved on to our next destination (which, let’s be honest, was dessert — we were at Disney after all!), I couldn’t help thinking of how nonchalantly I had sent the remainder of my meal, undoubtedly with uneaten grains of rice, back to the kitchen.

It is not uncommon to send some partial meal remnants back to the kitchen, and I don’t mean I am remiss for not having scarfed up every single grain of rice; but at the same time, I sort of felt like I had discounted some aspiring cook’s hard work and ambitions.

I was also reminded of efforts I have made, whether at work, at home, or in my community, that felt exquisitely meaningful to me but either didn’t have the results I intended or had outcomes which remained a mystery.

Petals Of Love

I have a friend who makes exquisite fabric flowers. Although her techniques have changed a bit over the years and she has acquired some machinery that helps her produce her beautiful creations less labor-intensively, she used to shape every single petal by holding the fabric just the right distance from an open flame to create the slightest curl to each petal.

My friend shared once about making a large quantity of her flowers for a community event. After all the hours of hand-shaping petals, the flowers were barely noticed among the other swag, some left behind on the dining tables or ignored. The event’s attendees didn’t know how much painstaking work had gone into creating each bloom. I have to think they would have taken more care if they had understood the love and passion with which they were created.

Who Is Making a Difference For You Behind the Scenes?

Has someone in your world quietly, passionately, lovingly committed themselves to creating a quality product or experience?

Have you wondered if the care you take with the responsibilities and people entrusted to you matters?

Just like the custodians of the rice at Morimoto, renewing our attention to the small details unlocks potential: for us to see ourselves making a greater contribution and for others to appreciate how something as small as a grain of rice can represent so much more.

 

Featured on Friday: Awakening Compassion at Work by @MonicaWorline

What if there was one thing you could bring to your organization — be it corporate, ministry, or non-profit — that would be guaranteed to lower blood pressure, strengthen immune systems, fuel innovation, improve service quality, foster adaptability, and increase retention?

Sound like an impossible dream?

Today’s featured author would disagree. She believes that compassion is a vital and powerful tool that every organization should be wielding. People are under enough stress these days, from physical suffering and relational discord, to national and global conflict, and the workplace does not need to add its own contribution to the list. Nurturing a compassionate atmosphere among employees — not only noticing others’ suffering but actually taking action to alleviate the pain — can ease tension, short-circuit stressors, and boost success rates for individuals and the organization as a whole.

Meet the Author — Monica Worline

Monica C. Worline, Ph.D., is founder and CEO of EnlivenWork, an innovation organization that teaches businesses and others how to tap into courageous thinking, compassionate leadership, and the curiosity to bring their best work to life. She is a research scientist at Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, where she engages in action research projects with organizations seeking to activate their social architecture of compassion. She loves working with “compassion architects” — the people in organizations who understand the power of connection and care and spread it wherever they can.

Monica is also the Executive Director of CompassionLab, the world’s leading research collaboratory focused on compassion at work. CompassionLab was co-founded with Jane Dutton, Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan, and the late Peter Frost of University of British Columbia. With a home base at the University of Michigan, they draw compassion and organization researchers from around the world into dialogue about creating more compassionate workplaces.

Monica holds a lectureship at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and is affiliate faculty at the Center for Positive Organizations. She is one of the lead instructors for an innovative immersion learning course entitled “Magnify,” which helps undergraduates interested in business and organizations see how to magnify the potential for excellence in any system.

Want to connect with Monica? Find her on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or send her an email.

Discover the Book — Awakening Compassion at Work

Suffering in the workplace can rob us of humanity, dignity, and motivation. Often silent and left unaddressed, suffering is a costly drain on organization productivity and potential. Marshaling evidence from two decades of research with organizations in a variety of industries and sectors, scholars and consultants Monica Worline and Jane Dutton show us how small actions can have big effects. Offering a view of compassion that is grounded in the best of social science research and the new science of compassion, this book teaches four ways that anyone, regardless of position or role, can bring more compassion to their work lives.

Going beyond each individual’s role in awakening compassion at work, Monica and Jane also reveal how managers, leaders, and change agents can diagnose the social architecture for compassion in their organizations. This work belongs on every organization’s strategic agenda, because creating conditions that draw out our capacity for compassion at work confers measurable competitive advantages in areas like innovation, collaboration, service quality, talent attraction and retention, and adaptability. Ultimately, as Monica and Jane write, “Compassion is an irreplaceable dimension of excellence for any organization that wants to make the most of its human capabilities.”

Intrigued? Visit the book site to download a free chapter, add it to your Goodreads shelf, or buy a copy on Amazon.

What People Are Saying

“‘Awakening Compassion at Work’ is a more than just a collection of stories – it is a moving reminder that all workplaces can thrive when people are intentionally aware of others.”

— Sean Glaze, 5-star Amazon review

“This book opened up my eyes to what we need to work every day along with empathy, empowerment, leadership or any other elements that you hold dear in a company culture.”

— Lisa Kosak, 5-star Amazon review

“This book is a welcome breath of hope and fresh air for fostering workplaces that uplift and nurture instead of tear down and drain.”

— N. Monson, 5-star Amazon review

“Reading this book not only makes me aspire to be a more compassionate person but also shows me how to do it!”

— Gretchen Spreitzer, 5-star Amazon review

“This book is an incredibly powerful response to suffering in the world. . . . If you want to be a candle against the darkness of our times, read this book.”

— Robert Stocking, 5-star Amazon review

Learn More

Visit AwakeningCompassion.com to learn more about the book and its authors, or download a free sample chapter. While there, you can also join the community of compassion architects, read the blog for compassion wisdom, or share your story of compassion in the workplace.

What It’s Like to Pitch You

Pitching story ideas to reporters is a funny business. It’s part sales, part journalism, and can be super frustrating and super rewarding by turns. That’s why you’ve hired Weaving Influence to do it for you!

I’ve sent pitches for clients and employers, received pitches as a freelancer, and for a while even worked as a publicist for a news network. Talk about meta. Having been on the receiving end of successful pitches as well as having sent them, here’s my process for taking your PR strategy and putting it to work!

First—I need to fully understand your message. If I haven’t already read your book or blog in preparation for writing your press release, I’ll do that first thing. You never know what fun anecdotes might pop out that could be used later in a pitch, or could provide an otherwise unknown connection to a journalist.

Second—I need to fully understand your goals. If your dream is to get into the Wall Street Journal, reach the pharmaceutical industry, or give a TED talk, that will drastically affect my pitching plan. Weaving Influence has established relationships with a number of business reporters, leadership bloggers, and career-focused podcasters who are usually happy to hear from us, and that helps a lot. But if there’s a special audience you want to reach, let me know what it is—and how it will help you.

Then, the hardest part—deciding where to start. Cision, the comprehensive media database we use for press release distribution and some of our research, lists almost 4,000 media contacts under the subject of “books and literature” alone! This is why it’s so helpful to have your goals in mind before the process starts; by narrowing down the top-priority outlets, we can save a lot of time weeding out the ones you don’t really care to get into anyway.

Once I have a good list of 10-20 outlets, I’ll pick one and really dive in. And this is the really important part: picking the writer to pitch. Using Cision, Weaving Influence records & colleagues, and good old fashioned Google, I examine staff lists to see who covers what. I check out a reporter’s latest writing to make sure they’re still current with the publication. If they’re on Twitter, I spend time reading their tweets to get a feel for what’s on their mind. I’m looking for the perfect match between their topic interests and your message.

By now it’s pretty easy to draw the connection between the writer and you. I’ll send the reporter a quick note, often mentioning a recent story they’ve written, and why a story on your topic might make an interesting follow-up for their readers. I’ll attach our carefully crafted materials about you—a press release or press kit, maybe—or just offer up a copy of the book, when that’s more appropriate. If I’m pitching a podcaster or TV producer, I might link to a YouTube video of you speaking, just so they can see what an elegant communicator you are!

Basically, whatever the writer or interviewer’s role—blogger, book reviewer, editor, segment booker, freelancer—I take into account, so that what I’m offering them is crystal clear, something they can use, and mentioned high up in the email as well as repeated at the bottom.

The whole process can take quite a while per pitch—but it’s well worth the effort. We track everything on a spreadsheet that you have access to. I and some of my colleagues highlight wins in yellow. Then we share links with you and others on the WI team when these go live so that our social teams can spread them far and wide. And there’s nothing more satisfying than a long spreadsheet with lots and lots of yellow!

Interested in learning more about our PR services? Send us an email with your questions or to schedule a time to chat!

 

Featured on Friday: Leaders Made Here by Mark Miller

It doesn’t matter whether you work at a Fortune 500 company, a non-profit, or something in between: one area that is critical to the health of your organization is leadership — specifically, modeling “good” leadership and training leaders for the future. Creating and maintaining an effective leadership culture matters whether you’re part of a business, church, sports team, social committee, town hall, or something else. What does that mean exactly?

Today’s featured author explains what a “leadership culture” involves and how to create it — with ideas like defining, training, practicing, and measuring — in his newest book, Leaders Made Here. He believes that people want more than a paycheck and basic benefits from their job, and that most people do want to grow, though they may need a little encouragement to combat complacency. In his words, “the best leaders are always learners.”

Meet the Author — Mark Miller

Mark Miller began writing over decade ago when he teamed up with Ken Blanchard on The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do. In 2011, he released The Secret of Teams, outlining the key principles that enable some teams to outperform the all the rest. Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life came next in 2012, followed by The Heart of Leadership in October 2013, the 10th Anniversary Edition of The Secret in September 2014, Chess Not Checkers: Elevate Your Leadership Game in April 2016, and Leaders Made Here in March 2017. With more than 700,000 books in print, Mark has been surprised by the response and delighted to serve leaders through his writing.

In addition to writing, he really loves speaking to leaders. Over the years, he’s traveled extensively around the world teaching for numerous international organizations. His theme is always the same: encouraging and equipping leaders.

He also sells chicken. Mark started his Chick-fil-A career working as an hourly team member back in 1977. In 1978, he joined the corporate staff working in the warehouse and mail room. Since then, he’s provided leadership for Corporate Communications, Field Operations, Quality and Customer Satisfaction, Training and Development, and Organizational Effectiveness. Today he serves as the Vice President of High Performance Leadership. During his time with Chick-fil-A, annual sales have grown to over $5 billion, and the company now has more than 1,700 restaurants in 39 states and the District of Columbia.

He’s been married to his high school sweetheart, Donna, for more than 30 years, and they have two sons, a daughter-in-law, and a beautiful granddaughter. He keep a full schedule and lives an active life. He works hard to stay fit — but he also has a weak spot for Starbucks — specifically, Venti two-pump soy mochas with no whip. He also loves photography. He’s had the privilege to shoot in some of the world’s hardest-to-reach places, including Mount Kilimanjaro, Everest Base Camp, Antarctica, and the jungles of Rwanda.

Want to connect with Mark? Find him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Discover the Book — Leaders Made Here

Every organization dreams of having enough leaders. Yet most take a haphazard or inconsistent approach to leadership development. They either assume they can find new leaders when they need them, or they believe leaders are born, they can’t be made. The consequences of this thinking are devastating, creating a perpetual shortfall of high caliber leaders; yet without them, no organization can thrive. The good news: this problem is solvable.

Bestselling author and Chick-fil-A executive Mark Miller describes how any organization can create a culture in which leaders are routinely and systematically developed, resulting in a surplus of leaders. Miller details how to nurture leaders throughout the organization, from the front lines to the executive ranks. He provides a game plan for organizations to create a deep and effective leadership bench.

To bring his ideas to life, Miller uses the story of Blake, a new CEO, and Charles, and old friend and colleague, as they search for best practices from around the world to ensure a continuous supply of their most precious asset leaders. Blake and his team then translate their findings into a practical plan that any organization can use to create a leadership culture that will ensure a sustainable competitive advantage and long-term success.

Intrigued? Visit the book site to download a free chapter, add it to your Goodreads shelf, or buy a copy on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

What People Are Saying

“Mark Miller tells stories. He tells them with engagement and purpose. This book is no exception. The book is not extensive in writing, consisting of 144 pages (according to the publisher; the actual story is 130 pages) of easy reading. Even the format – font and layout – are conducive to making this a quick read. However, this small book can make an impressive impact on a leader. As straight-forward as the principles are, they could take a career to implement.”

— Roy Wallen, 5-star Amazon review

“Mark doesn’t just throw ideas, tools, and examples at us. Mark visually leads us down the leadership process by telling us a story. Who doesn’t love a great story where we can join the characters in learning?”

— Lisa Korsak, 5-star Amazon review

“This is a great resource not only for human resource professionals but for leadership teams as well. I would encourage churches, denominations, and faith-based institutions to study Miller’s model for building leadership cultures in their settings as well.”

— Ircel Harrison, 5-star Amazon review

“[Mark’s] concepts are deep but explained in short & simple ideas (not overly theoretical). He presents a comprehensive framework and a preview of the realistic challenges. The process and examples are easy to follow. You don’t need a masters degree to get started, I believe any business leader can involve themselves in a similar process – at least on some scale.”

— Nathan Magnuson, 5-star Amazon review

“One of the things that I love about Mark Miller’s book is that he not just a leadership theorist but is an actual practitioner of leadership in a dynamic and well respected company. His books are fun to read and his guidance is action oriented and he provides a pragmatic and purposeful approach to helping build leaders.”

— Leslie Gornig, 5-star Amazon review

Learn More

Stop by the book site to learn more about Leaders Made Here, find tweets and graphics to share with your friends and coworkers, and read some of Mark’s recent guest articles.

Stop Giving Employee Empowerment a Bad Name

This post is part of our 2017 Team Buzz Builder Guest Blogger series. Today we are pleased to introduce you to executive coach and leadership expert, Josh Ploch.

Employee Empowerment is one of the most popular buzz words of the last few years.

We see it thrown around for everything from morale, to the new hip thing, to the best way to deal with millennials. Employee empowerment is often cited as a key way to gain competitive advantage in increasingly competitive markets. Unfortunately, the name is starting to get watered-down, and we are losing the true meaning of what empowerment in the workplace is and how we can impact it.

Let’s break it down.

What is the meaning of employee empowerment?

Generally, empowerment refers to a few key areas:

Employees are allowed to increase their scope of job duties by proactively engaging in work not spelled out in their job description or scope.
Employees are given greater control or flexibility in the decision-making of their job.
Employees are involved in key decision-making steps early in the process.
Employees and managers work together on goal setting and expectations.

What is the relationship between job satisfaction and employee empowerment?

There are a few key areas that are often referenced as improving in environments where empowerment is a focus:

Support and encouragement.
Freedom to complete the job with some form of self-direction.
Allowing employees to aid in defining the outcomes.

Where have we gone wrong?

The challenge that we have is that most leaders are starting the empowerment journey at the wrong point. We add employee empowerment as an afterthought, or a way to fix something that we perceive as a current issue in our workforce. We need to start the empowerment journey much earlier in our process, specifically during the hiring and onboarding process.

The key ingredient for success is your organization is finding, hiring, developing, and empowering the right people. Too many leaders are too focused on finding the right strategy – when they should be focused on finding the right people.

Once we have those people, we develop them by providing two things – Trust and Clarity.

Trust

We cast vision and let everyone know where we want to go. What is the vision? We say, “Here is the WHAT, here is the WHERE, here are the GUARDRAILS, and you figure out the HOW.” Many leaders struggle with the physical act of giving up control. There is no secret formula for this, although I have seen many tactics. The only way to really find out if you can trust someone is to actually trust them.

“Clarity without trust produces fear and inaction, Trust without clarity produces work without direction.” Craig Groeschel

If you explain the vision without following it up with trust, you produce an environment of fear. If you explain the vision, then jump in and do the task yourself, you create an environment of fear.

Clarity

The other challenge leaders often face while taking this journey is to offer trust but not follow it up with clarity. This fosters an environment where people are filling their time with tasks and duties that aren’t moving the vision forward. They are “busy” and working, but without clarity they don’t know what to work on, or if their work is moving toward the goal that you as a leader wants them to move toward.

How do we improve?

Here are some action steps that can help you improve your team in this area:

Identify where you need to improve – is it clarity or trust?
Identify some specific steps you can take to improve this area. Is it being more clear with the vision? Is it having one on one meetings with your team to define their roles? Is it giving more flexibility or responsibility to help them stretch? All of these can be key steps on the road to empowerment.
Pick one important goal. Identify a key area you want to impact change. Don’t be overly ambitious with change. Start with one key metric or goal.
Delegate authority and decision making instead of tasks. Most leaders delegate tasks, great leaders delegate decisions.

 

Never Stop Learning

I didn’t hate school, but I didn’t love it, either. I was always kind of middle-of-the-road, grade wise. Nothing came naturally to me, so I had to work really hard in order to get decent grades. Consequently, by the time college graduation came around, my 3.2 grade point average and I were tired of learning and excited to be done with school forever.

What I didn’t fully expect shortly after being on my own in the real world, though, was how much I’d miss always learning something new. I was bored to tears in my job and felt like I was just going through the motions. There was no challenge and I hated that. So I made the decision to become curious and start learning again. I taught myself how to basket weave, I learned the art of canvas-painting, I took an online class on coding, I watched documentaries about things like Scientology and the O.J. Simpson and Sommeliers, I started learning the basics of German, I took a course to become certified in TEFL.

I quit math, science, and aesthetics when I graduated; but it turns out, I never quit learning. And while the skills I’ve spent my time on probably aren’t going to directly impact my career, I fully believe I’m a better employee because I refuse to let myself quit being curious about the way things work.

Why is learning and curiosity so crucial to success in work?

You’ll never grow bored. There are so many new and interesting skills and ideas in this world, that it’s impossible to ever learn everything, especially if you want to gain any kind of mastery over it. If you commit to always learning something new, boredom becomes impossible.
You’ll stay humble. Again, there are so many skills to be learned and ideas to be thought about that it’s impossible to learn them all. There will always be something you don’t know, and when you’re aware of that fact, it’s pretty easy to stay humble.
You’ll become indispensable to your team. When you commit to learning, you’ll get good at it. You’ll become quicker at picking up new tasks, and you’ll eventually become indispensable to your team. They’ll know that they can come to you and, even if you don’t know how to do what they need, you’ll learn it.

Staying curious and constantly committing to learning new things is an asset that will make you a better employee in general, not just with the stuff you enjoy doing, but also with the monotonous, day-to-day, busy work that you could do without.

In a recent study done by the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), one of the co-authors, Dr. Matthias Gruber, said this of curiosity: “Curiosity puts the brain in a state that allows it to learn and retain any kind of information, like a vortex that sucks in what you are motivated to learn, and also everything around it.”

Not only will a commitment to learning and curiosity make your life more interesting, it will rewire your brain to retain even the most boring of information. In turn, you’ll get better and better at your job and become an invaluable member of any team you’re on. There is no downside.

Featured on Friday: Lilac Dreams by @BonnieHathcock

Stories are powerful tools. We relate to them. We connect with the characters, their struggles, and sometimes their victories. In them, we find role models to follow, principles to emulate, and pitfalls to avoid. In memoirs, the most personal form of story, we meet real people who have poured their real struggles and mistakes onto paper so that we might learn from their experience.

The best of memoirs lead us by example. They offer real-life lessons of grit, determination, and resolve. They share humble promises of joy and offer honest encouragement to keep on living, keep trying, one day at a time. They give us hope that we, too, can fight through our harsh realities to one day reach our dreams.

Today’s featured author has penned such a book. She writes in the first chapter, “Before there can be dreams of lilacs, there is almost always a harsh reality to struggle through.” And her early realities were harsh indeed! Her story travels the path from abandonment and poverty, through hard work and determination, to a distinguished success as the highest ranking executive of a Fortune 100 company and the top of her field in human resources.

Meet the Author — Bonnie Hathcock

Bonnie C. Hathcock has over 35 years of experience in corporate America. For most of those years, she held C-suite positions at the top of Fortune 100 and 200 corporations. Bonnie began her career at Xerox Corporation, where she spent a decade learning world-class marketing concepts.

Her business and marketing acumen eventually caught the attention of a high-ranking executive from Siemens A.G., who promoted Bonnie to the position of vice president of human resources for one of the largest Siemens companies in the United States. Bonnie would eventually be promoted to vice president of Human Resources for US Airways, and senior vice president of Human Resources for Humana Inc.

Bonnie’s work ethic and drive for excellence awarded her the distinction as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women in Human Resources in 2005. In 2007, Bonnie was named Human Resources Executive of the Year, a national award presented by HR Executive Magazine. In 2010, Bonnie was inducted as a fellow into the National Academy of Human Resources.

Bonnie has an MBA and has completed post-graduate studies at the Stanford University School of Business. She resides in Tennessee with her husband, Lee, and her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Cubby.

Want to connect with Bonnie? Find her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or contact her via email.

Discover the Book — Lilac Dreams

Bonnie Hathcock never wanted anyone to know how humble her roots really were. As she sat in the mahogany boardroom of one of the largest corporations in the country, she worried about being worthy enough to be there. She had made it to the top as one of the highest ranking officers of a Fortune 100 corporation. She kept her background out of view, because she feared being looked down on.

That was until the day she chose joy. Bonnie realized she was suspending the presence of joy in her life. She thought joy was something off in the future, when she wasn’t working and when she didn’t have so much pressure. Through a series of encounters with special people in her life, she realized she could be happy most of the time. She boldly embraced the pathway to unlocking her inner joy. It took work and practice. She began by confronting her shame: shame about her humble beginnings, her mistakes, and her limitations.

In confronting her shame, she made a discovery that changed her life’s perspective. Her past made her who she is and actually created the success she attained. In her struggles, she learned to overcome. In her disappointments, she learned how to hope. In the mistakes, she discovered how to be better.

Bonnie wrote Lilac Dreams to share the story of her youth…with its mistakes, hardships, and struggles. Despite her circumstances, Bonnie still had her dreams. Dreams of making something of her life and of going beyond her own limitations. Lilac Dreams is a book that will move you to look beyond your current circumstances, help you to push past your limitations, and affirm your worth in this world. Bonnie believes if she can do it, you can do it.

Intrigued? Visit the website to learn more, add it on Goodreads, or buy a copy on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

What People Are Saying

“The book offers readers an intimate look into Bonnie’s life and her pathway to success but her story is more than a retrospection into the past. ‘Lilac Dreams’ also inspires its readers to look and move forward in their own lives and to work tirelessly to achieve their dreams.”

— Melissa Russell, 5-star Amazon review

“Moving. So very moving. I read this book cover to cover in one sitting because I could not put it down. It felt like I was THERE with Bonnie in Shippensburg . . .”

— SGMaurer, 5-star Amazon review

“A powerful story for women especially, to see how the past affects us, and molds us, but does not necessarily define us for the future. I want y granddaughters to read books like this as they grow up.”

— Doc Myron, 4-star Amazon review

“I was thrilled beyond words when I received ‘Lilac Dreams.’ I read it immediately, from cover to cover, savoring every word. I am re-reading it again today. This book was written straight from the heart and I am so very proud of Bonnie for all of her superior accomplishments in life.”

— CLKANN, 5-star Amazon review

Learn More

Stop by Bonnie’s website to learn more about her book, find tweets and graphics to share with your friends and coworkers, and start reading her blog for practical insights on being a leader and finding joy.

Is It Time to Re-Design Your Website?

How often do you need to re-design your website? It’s a big decision—one that no business takes lightly. A new website requires significant investment of time, money, and resources.

Considering how fast and frequently technology changes, a website rarely stays fresh and engaging for more than three years. Besides simply aging out, there are a few major reasons to consider a website overhaul:

Your organization wants to overhaul their content. Often, what are perceived to be “minor” changes in content are often so extensive that a new website designed specifically for that content may be the better option.
Your organization is going through a re-brand. Perhaps your company got acquired or acquired another company, or you have decided to change the name, colors, logo, etc. Any dramatic change to the core business may be a good reason to consider a new website.
The website does not reflect the organization. Weaving Influence recently went through this when we realized that our website no longer represented the cutting-edge digital marketing knowledge we possessed. We designed a new website and updated our branding so our website and brand represent the best of what we can do.
The functionality of the website is not working effectively. You may have a theme that has expired and no longer updates, or perhaps your website is not mobile responsive. If your website is not able to perform the technical functions you need, a new website designed and developed to fit your needs may be your only option.

Figure Out What’s Right for You, Right Now

If your website is still fulfilling most of your needs, you may not need a full re-design. If the branding, functionality, and overall look of the site is still appealing to the majority of your customers, you may just need to do a content refresh. Make sure all of the information on your site, including phone numbers, emails, social media accounts, bios, etc., is up to date. Spice up your copy a bit, especially on the home page.

A Good Website is an Investment

Deciding whether you need a new website requires stepping out of your comfort zone to consider how your potential customers view you, and how you want them to view you. Ask yourself: “If my ideal customer came to my website, would they be blown away by my design, content, and branding?”

The way your website looks and functions can directly impact the success of your business. No matter how much experience you have, if your website looks out-of-date or unprofessional, potential customers could quickly assume that you, in turn, are unprofessional, and click off before even taking the time to learn about who you are and what you have to offer.

Be honest with yourself. Whether you just need some minor updates, or a major overhaul—now is the time to consider the future of your website and, in turn, the success of your business.

Interested in exploring a website update? Contact Weaving Influence to talk to an associate!

 

 

Featured on Friday: Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work by @FowlerSusanN

What motivates you to dream big and work hard? To choose to pursue one goal and ignore another? To schedule time for work and time for rest?

We all have particular things that motivate us to do, or not do, whatever comes across our paths — from deriving a sense of identity, to demonstrating particular values, to simply desiring enjoyment and pleasure. We are all motivated by something, whether internal (such as autonomy) or external (such as approval) rewards.

Today’s featured author believes that, only as we move away from dependence on external rewards, and reach toward more internal rewards, can we begin to find meaningful and sustainable motivation for everything we do in work and life itself.

Meet the Author — Susan Fowler

Susan Fowler implores leaders to stop trying to motivate people. In her bestselling book, she explains WHY MOTIVATING PEOPLE DOESN’T WORK… AND WHAT DOES: The New Science of Leading, Engaging, and Energizing.

Susan educates leaders on motivation best practices based on solid science communicated through compelling storytelling, case studies, and real-life examples. Through her writing, speaking, consulting, training, and coaching, Susan is dedicated to providing leaders around the globe with a cutting-edge framework, dynamic model, and pragmatic course of action to shape workplaces where people flourish while producing sustainable results.

Susan is the author of by-lined articles, peer-reviewed research, and six books, including the bestselling Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager with Ken Blanchard. She is a regular blogger for the Huffington Post and LeaderChat. Tens of thousands of people worldwide have learned from her ideas through training programs such as the Situational Self Leadership and Optimal Motivation product lines. Susan is a professor in the Masters of Science in Executive Leadership program for the University of San Diego and a rotating board member for Angel Faces, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping adolescent girls with severe burn and trauma injuries.

Want to connect with Susan? Find her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+.

Discover the Book — Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work . . . And What Does

Top leadership researcher, consultant, and coach Susan Fowler says stop trying to motivate people! It’s frustrating for everyone involved, and it just doesn’t work. You can’t motivate people—they are already motivated, but generally in superficial and short-term ways. In this book, Fowler builds upon the latest scientific research on the nature of human motivation to lay out a tested model and course of action that will help leaders guide their people toward the kind of motivation that not only increases productivity and engagement but that gives them a profound sense of purpose and fulfillment.

Fowler argues that leaders still depend on traditional carrot-and-stick techniques because they haven’t understood their alternatives and don’t know what skills are necessary to apply the new science of motivation. Her Optimal Motivation process shows leaders how to move people away from dependence on external rewards and help them discover how their jobs can meet the deeper psychological needs—for autonomy, relatedness, and competence—that science tells us result in meaningful and sustainable motivation.

Optimal Motivation has been proven in organizations all over the world—Fowler’s clients include Microsoft, CVS, NASA, the Catholic Leadership Institute, H&R Block, Mattel, and dozens more. Throughout the book, she illustrates how each step of the process works using real-life examples. Susan Fowler ‘s book is the groundbreaking answer for leaders who want to get motivation right!

Intrigued? Download a free sample chapter, add it on Goodreads, or buy a copy on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

What People Are Saying

“This is a phenomenal book. Rather than writing about self-determination theory, Susan unpacks it in a way that provides access, demonstrates mastery over the material and gives you scientifically grounded access to using it within your life and your teams . . . This is an incredible tool that the world very much needed.”

— Gabriel B. Grant, 5-star Amazon review

“This is a great book that you’ll enjoy the first time you read and, if you’re like me, turn back to time and again for a refresher.”

— David Witt, 5-star Amazon review

“This is one of my Top 10 reads of all-time. I love this book so much that I have a hard copy and the kindle version. It will be one of my desk reference books for the unforeseeable future. The way Susan makes it easy to understand the Motivational Junk Food we try to feed employees (and volunteers, our kids, etc.) is exactly what we must use to change what is now the conventional wisdom. “

— Rembach, 5-star Amazon review

“The information Susan shared in this book is priceless, especially for those leaders that really want to serve their people and customers, because after all, the nature of human motivation is not about making money, is about making meaning and having a sense of purpose.”

— Sonia Farace, 5-star Amazon review

Learn More

Watch Susan’s recent webinar, which explains the science behind people’s top 5 motivations and the lessons of her book Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work…and What Does. Stop by the book site for a free downloadable chapter, as well as beautiful graphics that you can share with your friends and coworkers. Or visit her website to read Susan’s blog, take the free motivational outlook assessment, and find other resources to nurture your understanding of optimal motivation.

When Unsure How to Respond: Observe, Remember, Do

“What do I do here?” is a question I have asked myself many times. Sometimes the choice was minor; other times, larger outcomes were at stake.

When I was at my friend Kimmi’s bat mitzvah eight years ago, toward the end of the service, baskets full of hard candy were passed around. Watching what the people around me did, I took some of the candy, not really knowing why I was taking hard candy at a religious service — I had never seen this done before.

AND THEN PEOPLE STARTED THROWING IT TOWARD THE RABBI AND KIMMI.

Finally someone said, “It’s what we do. It’s a good thing,” and I started throwing candy too, joining a tradition that represents “showers of blessings” (for a thoroughly entertaining explanation, read this).

Turning A Negative Situation Around

When a synagogue here in Tallahassee received hate mail recently, community members decided to counteract the negativity with positive letters of support.

Congregation Shomrei Torah held a community shabbat service on February 17, to thank Tallahasseeans who sent letters of support. When the synagogue president began his remarks, he described the moment when he was sitting in his office, reading the hate mail and feeling alone; then he terminated the arc of events by describing the deluge of positive letters from throughout the Tallahassee community he received in response. While these positive letters did not erase the initial act of negativity, they affirmed how much he and his congregation, which has been a part of Tallahassee for 40 years, are valued and cared for.

Remember and Observe

As I participated in the community service, I was struck early on by the emphasis on how “remembering” and “observing” were inextricably linked with one another through this line in an opening prayer: “’Observe’ and ‘remember’ in a single utterance.”

Although an interpretation of remembering, observing, and the relationship between the two should be left to far better theological minds than mine, the bond between the two words spoke to me as I, an Episcopalian, set next to an Imam surrounded by people of all faiths, as well as the Congregation’s members.

This community situation was transformed by a third word: DO. 

How Do Letters Bring Us Together?

Although we have all grown accustomed to electronic communication, text messages, and snapchat shares that go away within 24 hours, a letter has a permanence, as well as a physical and emotional weight, that only paper and ink can achieve.

One congregation member described a letter written by a child that said, “I am writing this on paper with a pen.” I love the literal thinking portrayed in that letter! And I love the fact that clearly it meant something to that child to commit his or her thoughts in ink. On paper.

Among those of us attending the service, we had observed choices among our fellow humans that threatened to divide us. Although the observe referenced during the Shabbat service had to do with holding the sabbath day holy, when I heard it at the beginning of the service in the same line as remember, I was reminded that it is one thing to think compassionate thoughts for another, yet a different thing to do something tangible to show that compassion.

It is in remembering what it feels like to be rejected by our fellow humans that we tap into the reserves of empathy that lead us to say, “That’s not our town. That’s not me.”

One congregant chatting with me said, “I have seen other houses of worship in our town defaced by graffiti and other derogatory symbols and images. While I felt bad for them, it didn’t occur to me to send them letters. What happened here, when community members sent us letters, was that they taught me to be a better Jew.”

Like me, sitting in a synagogue uncertain of what to do with a handful of hard candy, the woman I was speaking with needed to know, for the future:

What do I do here?

Now there is a stack of letters, a fresh bond among people of disparate faith traditions, and the knowledge that together, we will not be moved (one of the songs we sang in unison), to inform her.

By connecting with one another over mail, we saw a perfect example of observing what was happening, remembering what it feels like to be the subject of rejection, and deciding “what to do here.”