"...keeping you great"
HEADLINES:
You'll Be Remembered Most For...The people you developed who went on to stellar accomplishments inside or outside the company and the people of all stripes who 2/5/10/20 years later say "You made a difference in my life," "Your belief in me changed everything." Powerful thought from ubur-guru Tom Peters.
Sergeants Win Battles, Not Generals -- Tom Peters, legendary business author, was his usual raging (and highly entertaining) self at our National Growth Summit in Sydney this week. One of his opening four key points hammers home the importance of frontline supervisors/managers -- and how most companies do nothing to prepare them for the job. Do any of you have a recommended source for an "absolutely best in industry" first time supervisor training? Here's a link to Tom's short post about the National Growth Summit and his PowerPoint presentation entitled "Excellence: The 15(H)" -- check out Slides #14 - 18.
Tom Peter's Points 2, 3, and 4- to finish what he called the "Four (Really) First Things Before First Things":
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#2 -- Cross Functional Excellence is Critical - and to improve, make friends in other functions by going to lunch together i.e. don't waste a lunch! |
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#3 -- Listening is Strategic - and everyone in the company should go through a world-class listening course |
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#4 -- Forget Micro-niches - instead focus on the only two markets that matter - those over 65 and women, who control 94% of all spending. |
Go to Slide 48, print it out, and post it on your bathroom mirror! And then scan through the entire PowerPoint deck and be sure to look at Slide 159 - most important in the deck. Slide 189 is the entire summary of his presentation.
Do You Have a Work Spouse? -- this CNN story caught my attention. And though the term "work spouse" is catchy (caused me to read the article) and can result in jealous real spouses, there's one paragraph in the article that summarizes why it's important to have what I prefer to call an "accountability partner" at work. Notes the article: "We've used our relationship to rocket to the next level in our professional careers -- and have depended on each other to call out our bad work behaviors, figure out what is the most important work to be doing, and challenge each other to do the impossible." Simply having another person at work willing to watch your back is critical - and a key coaching/mentoring component to first line supervisory training - and top executive development!
Are You Missing Customer Requests on Twitter? -- I became anxious when I read this latest article highlighting how Fortune magazine tested various companies in their response time on Twitter. I realized that if someone asked us a customer service question via Twitter, we would fail miserably in responding. So I emailed social media guru David Meerman Scott to get recommendations of software where we can monitor keywords and be alerted when our name is mentioned. David personally uses TweetDeck; his wife swears by HootSuite.
Nurse Next Door Saved Reputation Using Social Media -- when a competitor, on their website, falsely accused Nurse Next Door of providing shoddy service because of their franchise model, rather than seek legal recourse (their lawyers said they had a good case), they chose a social media response - "right out of David Meerman Scott's playbook" notes John DeHart, co-founder of this rapid growing franchise (taking advantage of the aging market!!). John knew what to do from Scott's presentation at the Fortune Growth Summit. Here's a link to the short article describing DeHart's strategy - essentially he blogged about the situation and in the end the competitor removed the defamatory content.
The Problem with being Better -- speaking of blogs, I particularly liked CEO of Barmetrix, Sean Finter's, post where he challenged his clients (1000's of restaurants) to quit trying to get better and instead start "being the best." Nice play on words, but also a poignant point. Customers don't want better, they want the best. Employees want to work with the best company and for the best leaders. Go to this link and scroll down a couple postings.
Again, do any of you have access to a "best in industry" first time supervisor training program? Thank you in advance for any leads and input.
Rockefeller Habits One-Day Workshops Announced:
Cedar Rapids - April 19
San Francisco - April 20
Fort Lauderdale - April 27
Boston - April 28
Dallas - April 28
Philadelphia - May 18
Los Angeles - June 7
Denver - June 7
Seattle - June 23