Your Word

Words have meaning. "Trust me, I give you my word." Words we use signal commitment. Seal your work with a handshake and you are guaranteeing performance and a solid delivery. Businesses are built on trust -- and it travels both ways -- trust is in constant volley between employer and employee. 

How does one develop trust? Who do you trust to work with? It is always the person who gives you their integrity. When we don’t honor our word, the foundation for business collapses. Do you wholeheartedly believe in what you submitted your word to? You must. 

The pilot is flying the plane, so you trust him. The chef in the kitchen has given you every ingredient in your dish, so you trust him. Next time you do something, think about your word and how important it is -- in every professional role, including your own. 

So, as we start a new decade, start fresh. Make sure you are standing behind your word. In this world that seems to be doing business via hasty, brief text messages and emojis, my advice is the following:  Slow down.  Show up on time. Be present. Deliver and don't stop until you do. They may be simple tenants to live by, but they define your integrity. 

Holiday Blessings

Dear Friends,

May this Thanksgiving and Holiday Season be filled with abundance and joy. 

Warmest holiday blessings to you and yours,

Ssusan

How to Build a Successful Two-Way Communications Highway to Grow your Business

Relationships are the backbone of business. You bring knowledge and know-how of the industry to your clients. You also consult and educate your clients, learn about their perspective, listen to their opinions and concerns, make recommendations, and help them make decisions. With good communication skills, you become trusted advisors for every client, co-worker and associate.  Your business relationships are about creating positive collaborative partnerships every time. The power of good communications means a successful project and long term trusted relationships.

 Tips for Good Communication

1. Respect, Research and Prepare. This is at the top of the list for a reason because these three words need to be in the back of your mind always. Before meeting a new client or heading into a meeting on an on-going project, do your research. Know your client, know the project, know the situation. Research is the key element of your preparation before every interaction. Also, ask your client how they prefer to communicate and what days/ times suit them best.

2. Time is sacred. Your clients are busy. Spend a few moments of your time thinking about the best communication approach in a given situation and then ask your client about their availability. Be respectful of your client’s time. Do not inundate a client with correspondence and chains of emails. Prepare a pre- communication agenda, and also have a short-term and long-term agenda on hand. This will keep all interactions effective.
3. Know which form of communication to use and when. Does your client prefer emails or phone calls? What time of day is best for them? Generally, if a client calls you, you should call them back. Always respond in a caring and professional way, every time. Never direct a client to do his or her own research.

4. Make your objectives clear. Prepare an agenda before your interactions so that your meeting has a specific and defined purpose.

5. Listen, take notes, and keep your notes. This benefits you, the client and the company.

6. Get to know your client outside of the workplace. Get to know the individual. Remember that he or she has a birthday.

7. Never take things personally. Everyone brings life with them to work. It’s all one piece. Never take things personally. Move on and stay focused.

8. Always follow up. Remember those notes you took? Always send an email to highlight what was discussed within 24 hours after a meeting. Document the responsibilities given, tasks delegated, and any assigned deadlines.

9. The power of thank you. There is nothing more meaningful to a client than a thank you—from you.

Do You Care...Really Care?

In the past couple of decades, many forward-thinking businesses have made great investments to grow and improve workplace culture as a way to enhance their work environment. New benefit resources include more relaxed workspace, flex schedules, health food cafeterias, fitness, wellness centers and the list goes on. Businesses have demonstrated to their employees that they care and want to support them with a healthy and well-rounded experience at work. But are all of these “wellness innovations” on the part of the employer being reciprocated? Are the employers “feeling the love” from their employees?

More and more, I am seeing employees who lack “caring” and don’t know how to take ownership. I am seeing a gap in commitment or “pride,” despite numerous perks. By eliminating mundane daily stresses, the thought was that the employee would be less distracted thus focusing more diligently and efficiently while forming constructive teams at work. Yet, in creating a culture that is dependent on perks, we are underlining for the individual: "Eat better, stay fit, we’ll support your personal goals.” Coming to work for the employee is evolving into “How much can I take and how little do I have to give in return?”

The corporate office has become a place to nest rather than a web of connection among employees. No thought from the individual, it seems, is given to the unspoken gratitude the employer hopes to receive in the way of hard earnest performance. All of these perks were designed to bring employees together. And, sadly, forgotten completely is the ability to extend one’s gratitude beyond company doors.

The founding principles of this country have been humanitarianism. If your employer is freeing up your time so that you don’t have to worry about a lot of every day stresses, then perhaps a portion of your time could be spent giving back in some form with the intention to impact someone else’s life through ALL of your daily actions – in and outside of work. Employees have become complacent to the overtures of their employers and these overtures are now being looked at as the norm. Take them away and you fear your staff will turn away. Is this a business model that has reached its end?

Everyone today talks about how they “care” about the environment, friends, colleagues, clients, children, homeless, economic distress…We can express those concerns, but do our actions support our words? I often ask the people I work with what they are compassionate about and what they truly believe in their hearts—minus the noise of technology.

How do you show people you care? When was the last time you reached out to your boss, client, friend or family member just to say hello and see how they were doing? When did you invite others to collaborate with you on a project-in a trusted environment for the betterment of a client or the company that employs you? When was the last time you thought about your actions and how your decision (or lack of decision) will impact those around you? When did you think that not communicating a project’s challenges would make things better? When did we stop weighing the human and financial impact of not communicating an important issue upfront? When did you volunteer hands-on time to help a friend move, serve at a soup kitchen, or teach a child to read? When did you last spend time visiting with family in a non-electronic environment? Caring seems to have become an empty word as opposed to the empathic root of its meaning.

My challenge to all of us is to re-evaluate our actions to make sure they are match our verbal communications. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Put this life rule into action to truly show we care and respect others. Slow down and realize that every action creates a reaction like the ripple of a rock thrown into the center of a still pond.

It is time to show we care about those around us…and for us to take the first step. Turn down the electronic noise. Look up and look around to see others around you. Spend a few moments to think about your actions, what you are doing, and how they will impact others at work, home and in your community.

The Whole Person: There is more to life than work

With the constant barrage of electronic interruptions in our day, we forget to give ourselves permission to turn off the outside. We place all kinds of “what ifs” in our way.  The most common hurdles: What if I miss something? Or, what if there’s an emergency?

Give yourself permission to miss something when you’re outside of your regular working hours. Do you work Monday through Friday? Well then, Saturday and Sunday are yours. YOURS. Don’t give that time to someone else. Give your time to play, creativity and innovation.  If it happens to spark an idea that has to do with your work, that’s great! In fact, that’s the irony. Most ideas come to us when we are at rest or at play. A little refresh is usually all we need to solve something or tackle a work challenge. 

I want to encourage you to be a WHOLE person. You are a human BEING. Take the time to do things that make you feel whole. Just BE. 

Tips to Achieving a Work-Life Balance

Tips to Improve Your Well-Being

Ways to win back your time: 

1) Plan your meetings well

2) Set a “Good bye office” alarm on your phone or your computer each day so you know it’s time to go home.

3) Set a “think break” alarm during the middle of the day for some fresh air.

4) Limit sources of communication with clients and business colleagues to two outlets during the day: Phone and email are suggested (text messaging in business tends to cross into personal).

5) Revisit your calendar and schedule to see where to improve your productivity. 

6) Set yourself up with a daily “I look forward to…” message so you don’t miss out on you. 

____

A couple of times per year, I catch up on business and life with a long-time trusted friend. Though we work in different industries, our discussions over the past few years have revolved around how to manage today’s workforce. We discuss new tools and training programs in the development and implementation stages at our respective organizations.  Yet our greatest challenge is a solution to this question: how to manage a better work/life balance with the constant presence of technology.

Let’s reviewing history from a contemporary point of view for a moment, with our work/life balance in mind. If we look back over the last 30 years, people mostly pursued careers of interest or a career in which they had a talent.  Most enjoyed what they were doing, even when facing challenges or long hours as they believed in what they were doing.

People had time to volunteer in their local communities. They found they had time for their own interests and pursuits that, in turn, made them more productive in their day-to-day lives and work. 

How will we view, in generations to come, the impact of the technology revolution? We will, no doubt, remember that the original promise was to make life easier, more efficient and more productive -- with less hours spent at work.

Today, however, that promise has faded into the background of non-stop communication blur of business and personal. We are challenged by too many hours at work— a phone that receives emails and texts at all hours of the day. Plus, many companies have office environments that are better than home: conversation nooks, game rooms, pets that roam, an ample stock of snacks and nap rooms. They bring extras to you like gyms and a trainer. While on the outside, you’ve got a great work environment, the fact that you are not missing anything from home means you are spending way more hours at work than your predecessors.

This blinding array of employee perks rubs away at the boundaries between professional and personal lives and this is a cause for great stress among the workforce. In a recent article,  “The Hidden Costs of Stressed-Out Workers,” (Wall Street Journal) companies often don’t realize how much they pay for lost time and productivity from unhealthy workplace dynamics. But there are ways to lower the stress level. Author Jeffrey Pfeffer cites several studies that show how effectiveness and productivity drop and health problems rise, when hours lengthen. 

As a workforce, we have embraced invasive technology but now we are facing the overload of our once manageable addiction. Often when a person is asked how they are doing, the response is always “busy…busy.” No one ever quite catches up on the business hamster wheel. 

If we look back on our history, we will see that we often had a work/life balance.  Before personal computers and cell phones, we knew that once we left the office, it was okay to turn things off, visit with family and friends, do something creative, workout, volunteer or just sit back and think.

Let’s take a lesson from history and let’s make a pact to “turn it off” and set boundaries by closing the door on electronic noise. Make room for your personal interests and passions that help you feel alive every day.

Mentoring and the Cross-Generational Workforce

Why should your organization take the necessary steps to bridge communication?  Because in most workplaces today, there are as many as five generation working together. (Fast Company, 2.7.19) Mentoring is at the center of many of my conversations today. Companies are facing challenges from today’s workforce due to a general lack of knowledge and understanding with regard to the vital marriage of historical and foundational development with rapid technological advances. 

Experiencing big gaps between A and C? Your workforce is relying too much on technology to speed up a process that really requires communication. We have created environments that provide too little time for the human element yet this is exactly what is needed to boost productivity and improve technology. 

I find myself reminding people to slow down. In order to experience success and growth, the best way to build a strong foundation is through cross-generational education, training and communication. Richard Bailey recently authored an article  on the cross-generational subject: "There are now five generations working in the workforce - Can they work together (Fast Company, February 7, 2019). In the words of Mr. Bailey: 

“Driving unity across a multigenerational workforce cannot happen without a commitment to professional development. Employees of every generation are wondering what the future holds for them, and they appreciate the value that continuous learning brings to career success. A recent study by D2L and Wainhouse Research found that younger and older workers have remarkably similar preferences for workplace learning. The common thread: All generations want to stay up-to-date on latest tools of the trade.”

“Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom.” Proverbs 4.7

Your best source of wisdom is the experience of those who are navigating the same ladder as you, in parallel, or at various other rungs. As individuals, we cannot know everything. Knowledge is a form of growth in learning that comes from shared communication. The most important aspect of the cross-generational workplace is recognizing the distinction between wisdom and knowledge. I encounter more and more people with the knowledge of a trade, but less and less with wisdom of it. To quote Mr. Bailey again:  

“Successful organizations view their multigenerational workforce not as a bane, but as a blessing. It is imperative, not just for individual organizations but for the entire working world, to embrace the benefits of an age-diverse workforce. When we come together, bound by technology, we can become more human in our interactions, communicate more clearly with those unlike ourselves, and reinvent mind-sets about the possibilities for the future of work.” 

Cross-generational training provides foundational well-being and stability. Mentoring is so critical to effective collaboration and communication in today’s workplace. Critical thinking is about talking things through. People need to pick up the phone or, better yet, leave their desks and computers to talk to other humans to gather knowledge and insights. And they need to know how to communicate in a way that bridges understanding spanning a vast span of wisdom.