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How to Overcome Self-Doubt in Your Own Work

8/4/2022

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By Mary Kelly

It is normal for many people to doubt themselves. If you have feelings of self-doubt, you’re in good company.

Doubting yourself creates a host of unfavorable scenarios and prevents you from reaching your full potential. It holds you back. Many opportunities may pass you by because you feel as though you don’t deserve them, you are not qualified enough, or that you’re lacking in some way.

Self-doubt is especially prevalent in the presence of peers. It’s easy for others on your level academically or professionally to challenge your self-belief – just by being there! You might feel like they’re ahead of you, even though you’re on the same level. It’s important to realize that you’re just as deserving as anybody else.  Stop comparing yourself to others.

Keep these concepts in mind to help you feel confident when trying to persuade others:
  1. You did the work. Take a moment and remind yourself about how much work you’ve done and how much effort it has taken to get to where you are. You know this material.  You are the expert.
    • Whether it’s getting through school or putting in years as a junior staff member, you’ve done it yourself. You’ve worked your way to where you are right now. Think back on all of the obstacles you overcame to get to where you are today.
    • It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it. And that’s why you’re worth every success that comes your way. Avoid shortchanging the work you put in. Don’t dismiss your own accomplishments.
  2. You’ve been validated. You earned your current status. Why are you questioning that?
    • If you have credentials, then the experts in your area of study have confirmed that you’re knowledgeable in your field. Your certification proves that you’re good at what you do.
    • Did you receive an award or a promotion at work? Your boss acknowledged the quality of your work and rewarded you. Embrace it!
  3. Your track record speaks for itself. Look back and assess the path you’ve taken and the successes you’ve had along the way.
    • Where you are right now is impressive. Now if only you could see it! It is hard for us to see our own progress. Our brain tends to dwell on everything else we need to do.
    • Consider how many people after you may benefit from your achievements. That’s nothing to take lightly! You continue to influence and inspire others.
  4. You deserve good outcomes from your work. That spotlight is just as much yours as it is anyone else’s. Embrace all the good things that are yours.
    • Use some of the time you spend praising others to praise yourself.
    • Avoid feeling guilty about speaking up for yourself. Your voice ought to be heard. You’re validated by your experience, expertise, and education. Have self-confidence and shine.
    • Reward yourself in ways that works for you.
Today is your day. Open your window and toss self-doubt out of your life. You’ll realize how quickly new opportunities present themselves when you make room for them.

As my friend Jess Pettitt says, “you are good enough now”.  Seize your well-earned confidence and move forward to your next challenge.

Planning your next event?
 Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event  a success!
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The Great Resignation: the silent crisis we need to talk about

6/30/2022

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By Mary Kelly

Sally is a 38-year-old manager of a retail store in a busy strip mall in Portland, Oregon. Last week, in a panic, she called her regional manager, Darla.

“Danny gave me his two weeks’ notice today. Charlene quit last week. I do not have people to run the store. What do I do?”

Sally’s boss weighed Sally’s options:
  1. You run the store until you can find people to work
  2. Shut the store down until you can find people to work
Without directly saying this to Sally, Sally’s boss was thinking, “Sally is the wrong person to manage this busy store. She must be a bad manager if her people are leaving her. We all know that people do not quit jobs, they quit their bosses. I cannot trust Sally.” Darla’s confidence in Sally dropped, and Sally could tell.

Sally was at her wit’s end, and she was frustrated with Darla for not understanding that the problem was bigger than just her and her store.

Sally was thinking:
“Darla doesn’t understand that I bend over backwards for my people. They like me and they have worked for me this long because they feel a sense of loyalty. I cannot blame Danny and Charlene for leaving right now. It just does not seem worth it to work.”

“They hate wearing masks all day. They hate that part of their job is now cleaning and sanitizing the store. They hate that shoplifting is increasing and that the police cannot respond right away. They know that their taxes are going up, so their take-home pay is going to decrease. The workload of the job has increased, and the pay increased, but not as much as the hassle of coming to work. Darla does not understand that Danny and Charlene were my best workers. They were reliable. They each have over 4 decades of work experience. Customers love them. I depended on them.”

“But I can’t blame them. If I were in their position, I would quit, too.”

Danny and Charlene are part of The Great Resignation.

Baby boomers, who are turning 65 at the rate of 10,000 per day have been crunching the numbers on their Roth IRAs, their Traditional IRAs, their 401(k)s, their SEPs, their savings, their investments, and their social security. They are doing the math on their budgets.

And the Baby Boomers are resigning in droves.

For Sally, it is a problem to replace her best front-line employees.

For large corporations, the resignation of 21 million experienced workers in the past 8 months is a crisis.

This attrition the next business crisis – the loss of the knowledge, education, work ethic, and talents of their most experienced people.

As Baby Boomers walk out the door, some Generation Xers are feeling relieved. “Finally! Maybe I can get promoted now!”

Other Generation Xers are considering their own resignation. “I don’t want to work for a new boss. Bill was great. I do not want Bill’s job. Whoever they bring in is going to be worse. Maybe I will follow Bill’s example and retire as well."

Human Resource managers are panicking.

“We are advertising everywhere, and we still cannot recruit the right people.”
“We are offering great pay and benefits and we still cannot hire the right people.”
“We are incentivizing our current employees with free lunches and other perks, and we still cannot keep the right people.”

This, and thousands of other scenarios, is The Great Resignation.

Senior executives are worried:
“How are we going to fill the gaps? Where are the job-hunters? How do we get future leaders ready for increased responsibilities?”

Some senior leaders were not thinking about leaving or moving to another job until they were hit with a wave of empty positions:
“I don’t want to have to do Cindy and Mark’s job along with mine. Maybe it is time for me to retire, too."

Employment cycles move like waves in the ocean. External forces impact us close to home. Everything Sally is experiencing is happening on a larger scale throughout corporate America.

The businesses that are least prepared and most negatively impacted by this wave are those without a viable succession plan.

A solid succession plan:
  1. Identifies what is needed at every major position.
  2. Clarifies the skills required for each role.
  3. Plans for the departures of every member of the team, whether the losses are prompted by current workplace conditions, personal reasons, unemployment benefits, sickness, promotions, or retirements.
  4. Strategizes on where to find the right talent based on future positional requirements.
  5. Implements personal and professional development at all levels to motivate and retain the right people.
I recently discussed the leadership challenges facing organizations today as part of the program called, A.R.M.E.D.: How to Attract, Recruit/Retain, Mentor/Manage, Evolve, and Develop Current and Future Leaders for healthcare leaders. They have the well-known challenges of healthcare professionals who are feeling burned out, overworked, and unappreciated.

The consequences of The Great Resignation are just now being realized as organizations are opening back up to find that some of their best talent is staying home for good.

How is The Great Resignation affecting your organization?

​Planning your next event?
 Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event  a success!
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How to Stay Focused During the Summer Months

5/24/2022

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By Mary Kelly

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Distractions are everywhere, and leaders know they need good habits that ground them in what is most important.

Being productive seems to be more difficult when people are thinking about taking vacations and traveling.

Incorporate these habits into your regular routines to stay focused on what is most important.
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  1. Plan a trip. It turns out that even thinking about a vacation is healthy. When people plan a trip, they envision the activities, the places they visit, and even the views. That planning actually helps our brains relax as though we were there. Planning is like a mini-vacation for the mind.  As leaders, encourage people to schedule vacation time, plan the vacation, and take the vacation.
  2. Care for health. Encourage your teams to stay fit with good nutrition, lots of water, exercise, and restful sleep. It sounds basic, but many of us sacrifice our health when we get really busy with work. Make sure it is easy for your teams to be healthy at work. Some work places have free filtered or bottled water available, and others bring in health lunches for special occasions.
  3. Show pride in the workplace. I recently watched a CEO stop to pick up trash on his way to the office in the morning.  It was a windy day, and a plastic bag and papers had blown across the grass.  He walked over and took it to the trash.  “Everything counts”, he smiled. He is right. He sent the example that everyone is responsible for the appearance of where we work, and everyone’s actions matter. He instilled pride in the organization by being willing to do what was needed at that moment.
  4. Clear the clutter. I struggle with managing clutter, because I work in piles of projects, and my piles expand to fill the space I have. Every week, I schedule time to clean the workspace. I take everything off the desk and then file it, toss it, or organize it. It’s easier to be productive and switch gears when my workspace is neat, clean, and organized.
  5. Monitor team self-talk. Speak kindly to yourself and request that your team members do the same. Use encouraging words. One of my managers used this phrase to overcome negative language in the workplace toward ourselves. She said, “if you would not say the words you are thinking to your best friend, you should not be using those words toward yourself.”
  6. Clarify your vision. Spend team-time brainstorming about what you want to accomplish and how you want to put that into action. Get the team together to figure out what everyone is thinking, and capture new ideas. Ask your team what you want your legacy to be and craft the vision based on where you want to go.
  7. Engage in meaningful activities. Devote your time and energy to projects that matter as a team. Use your specialized skills to help your community.  Some people wonder how they can promote teamwork while serving the community.  Arete, an architectural firm in Sheridan, Wyoming just built, as teams, dog houses that are raffled off to benefit [Include pictures}
  8. Stay positive. Peter B Stark, author of the amazing leadership book, The Competent Leader says, “As leaders we don’t have the luxury of negative thinking.”. As leaders it is our responsibility to search for the positive aspects and possibilities of every situation. We have to look for the opportunities the challenges bring, and find ways to make a tough situation better.

​Planning your next event?
 Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event  a success!
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How to Clarify Your Personal Mission

4/12/2022

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By Mary Kelly

Position alone doesn’t make you a good leader. Today we’ll learn how clarifying your personal mission is the foundational step to helping your team align with goals and then execute them.


Reflection:

Creating an environment of success and communicating purpose to others requires first understanding yourself and what motivates you.

When you know what YOU want to accomplish, and why, you can communicate purpose and values to those you lead, so they embrace team goals.

To gain insight into what you want to achieve, ponder what your life might look like 10 or 20 years down the road. The desire for significance in life is universal – and critical to achieving your goals over the long term.

Defining what brings significance to your life will help you focus on ways you can achieve your life purpose. Answer a few questions to help you determine your personal missionas the first step toward cultivating effective leadership.

Action:

A personal mission statement is not a list of specific goals or tasks. It’s broader than that. It’s a philosophy of life that guides your planning and goal setting.

Steven Covey calls it “…your constitution, the solid expression of your vision and values.”
Here are two examples of mission statements, one work-related and one related to family:
  • Use my skills and position to be a source of emotional, social, and financial good in this company.
  • Parent my children to become responsible, independent, and empathetic adults.
It’s okay to create just one statement, or one that’s work-related and one for your personal life. Don’t worry if they’re not perfect! You can refine them anytime.

Take a few minutes right now. Step away from everyday pressures and write answers to the questions below.

Use these questions to help you craft your personal mission statement: 
  1. What motivates you? What brings you the greatest joy or satisfaction?
  2. What does success look like to you?
  3. What unique role(s) are you able to fulfill in people’s lives?
Now write out your personal mission statement.

My personal mission: 
Once you’ve stated it clearly, ask yourself: Am I bringing my personal mission to bear in all areas of my life? 

​Planning your next event?
 Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event  a success!
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Overcoming 3 Common Obstacles to Team Building

2/24/2022

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By Mary Kelly

An effective team fosters creativity and takes advantage of diverse strengths and experiences. Working as a group can produce results beyond what any individual member could do alone.
However, some teams thrive while others flounder. Creating a collaborative environment takes work, and many obstacles can undermine the process.

Maybe negative competition runs rife. Or perhaps your organization could benefit from investing more time in teaching team-building skills.

Situations like these can take a heavy toll on job satisfaction and productivity. Learn how to spot and overcome 3 of the most common obstacles to team building.

Vague Goals

Teams must understand their goals before they can commit to them. While work groups may function independently in some ways, they still need senior leadership to provide adequate direction and support.

Use these strategies to ensure that everyone on the team is on the same page:
  1. Clarify your purpose. Each individual needs to be on board with the organizational mission and values. You can help keep these principles at the top of employee’s minds with meetings, retreats, and regular conversations.
  2. Set specific goals. Establishing common ground and concrete goals for your team helps to guide decisions and evaluate progress. Have a clear written statement of what you want to achieve. Take personal goals into account too. 
  3. Define roles. Reach a consensus about roles, responsibilities, and expectations. Detailed job descriptions prevent conflict and confusion. They also help each member to see where they fit into the bigger picture.

Lack of Trust

Cohesive teams trust each other. They create an atmosphere where members feel safe to share information and take risks. Developing healthy relationships makes it easier to tackle any task.
Try these tips to build trust within the team:
  1. Establish ground rules. Codes of conduct let members know what’s considered acceptable. Employees are also more likely to follow rules that they played a part in negotiating.
  2. Spend time together. Work groups may bring together employees who otherwise have little contact with each other. Plan some fun social activities to break the ice. Keep teams small enough to encourage personal connections.
  3. Reward teamwork. How do you get members excited about shared priorities rather than their own agendas? Provide incentives for collaboration and host group recognition events.
  4. Discourage cliques. Some teams might remind you of high school with an in crowd that leaves some students out. Try giving assignments that require interacting with someone new and change the make-up of each team from time to time.

Ineffective Communication

Friendly and respectful communication makes employees feel like they belong. Team members feel more driven to achieve their common purpose.

Keep these effective communication techniques in mind:
  1. Exchange feedback. Help each other with honest and tactful observations about how to enhance individual and group performance. Resolve disagreements before they escalate into serious conflicts.
  2. Ask questions. Learn from each other. Listen attentively and ask for more information and clarification when you’re unsure. Many snafus can be avoided by gathering facts and consulting each other before taking action.
  3. Provide training. Communication skills can be strengthened with practice and instruction. Survey teams to find out what assistance they want and need. Offer courses online or engage outside experts to customize a program.
  4. Use technology. Cloud computing, project collaboration software, and video calls have transformed the way teams interact. Now, you can stay in touch and coordinate activities, even when some employees are in the office and others work remotely.
  5. Stay positive. Attitudes are contagious. Team members can lift each other up or make maintaining morale more challenging. Focus on what you like about each other and be generous with thanks and praise.
You can make a difference in any team you join. Knowing how to deal with common obstacles will help you to create opportunities for engagement and advancement for yourself and your colleagues.

​Planning your next event?
 Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event  a success!
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10 Steps to Reduce Commitments and Do Only What You Truly Want to Do

1/18/2022

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By Mary Kelly

We are often stressed about unresolved tasks that hang over our heads.

Most of us feel as though we have too much to do, and we feel as though we don’t have enough time to do everything.

World events, our jobs, family issues, and community commitments often causes us to add to our stress bucket.
​

What can you get off your plate, resolve, or delegate so that you have more time and resources to devote to doing the activities only you can do, or for those things that you want to do??


  1. Automate bills and paperwork
  2. Resolve legal, tax, or financial problems
  3. Clean and organize your living space
  4. Clean and organize your office space
  5. Only do volunteer work that helps your business or your soul
  6. Decrease time with people who cause you stress
  7. Outsource errands as time and money permit (such as grocery delivery)
  8. Declutter unnecessary items from your life such as clothes and household items you don’t use, items in boxes you don’t look at. Tip: Resolve to purge a drawer once a day.
  9. Don’t increase your stress level by making promises you don’t want to make.
  10. Say no to extra commitments kindly and firmly. 
    “I don’t have the bandwidth to do that well right now.”
    “That does not fall under my purview.”
    “I already served on that committee. It is time to give someone else that opportunity.”

​Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event  a success!
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Best Training Tips for Remote Employees

9/30/2021

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By Mary Kelly

The continued push for flexible working hours and locations continues to expand and can be challenging for leaders who want to keep top talent, provide “working from home” opportunities, and stay productive.

Leaders know that training and developing their people is a crucial component for keeping them engaged and proficient. Workers claim they want to be both personally and professionally developed to become more successful in the workplace.  

One way businesses can provide flexibility, even when they have employees back on site, is to create training that can be done from remote locations. Training can be more effective when conducted at a time and place that is most convenient for the employee. It allows workers the flexibility they want, and can be a better experience than the “everyone has to meet in the conference room at 8 AM” approach.

How can organizations provide quality training that actually benefits both the employee and the organization?

1. Set expectations for the training outcomes

When it comes to ensuring the success of any training, it’s important to provide your employees a comprehensive walk-through of what they should expect to learn.

If leaders don’t provide direction and set expectations, workers may think this training is just another mandatory program designed to check a box for compliance or HR. They may not take it seriously. Leaders need to let their people know why they were given the training.

2. Have quality content

This is the biggest challenge I see when implementing training. Many leaders delegate the job of finding good topics and programs to the HR department. The HR department is not always clear on the leaders’ goals. Sometimes the HR department finds the cheapest possible option, and the outcome is worse than if they had not done any training at all.

For example, I just worked with an organization whose teams loved the prospect of having remote training on Effective Time Management, but they complained about the first series of programs they received. Why? The programs were poorly orchestrated, poorly conducted, and contained out-of-date content. Employees (rightfully) believed that this was a waste of their time, and the irony that the topic was called Effective Time Management was not lost on them.
The leader called me to do damage control. Employees were now jaded on remote learning, and they were wildly unenthused about going through another iteration without some kind of guarantee that it would be better.

Doing training right means getting it right the first time.

3. Assign group facilitators to hold remote learners accountable

Employees who have just started training remotely may find it a paradigm shift. They may try to multi-task the training, such as allowing the videos to run on one computer while they peruse social media on another. To make remote learning successful, assign a facilitator who may be able to be online at the same time and create a more interactive experience.

4. Schedule frequent supervisory check-ins after the event

Social isolation is one of the crucial challenges in the virtual world, even if it is only a day or two per week. Employees, including your training staff, may also suffer from this unique challenge. Frequent check-ins give your remote employees a sense of community. It gives them the feeling of being heard and acknowledged. If those workers are left ignored, it could potentially impact their training and learning enthusiasm, which decreases productivity.

5. Keep tabs on the learner engagement and performance

When you are providing training to your team, you won’t have the same level of visibility on your remote team as you would if you were in a physical office environment. Ignoring the learners for an extended period leads to poor team engagement and performance. Remember, engagement and performance go hand in hand. To ensure your remote team accomplishes both, help participants understand the objective of the training so that they can comply with their roles.

6. Help people focus
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The world is full of distractions, your remote learners may get distracted by everything they need to accomplish, both for work and at home. The same task might require more time as your team may struggle in a remote environment. Developing focus and priorities helps people plan their work, track their projects, eliminate what is unnecessary, and meet project deadlines.
Great training can help.

​Planning your next event?
 Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event  a success!
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7 Leadership Steps to Ensure Success

8/24/2021

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By Mary Kelly

1. Think about resource allocation as though they are the owners of the company. In economics there is a theory called the principal agent problem. It happens when employees, the agents of the organization, think more about their own best self interest than they do about the principal, or the organization.

In small ways, it means that employees don’t worry about walking  out the door with company pens, because they don’t consider that stealing.  On larger levels, it can manifest by padding an expense report, skimping on hours worked, and habitually using company time for personal use.  On a grand scheme, it means defrauding the organization.

Great employees think as though they are the principal, or the owner of the company.  They would not steal from themselves.  They would work 100% while at work.  They would consider, “If I owned this company, what would I want to happen next?  What do I need my people to do, plan, and act upon?”

2. Be empathic while still holding employees accountable.
Show compassion to employees while holding them accountable.  Leaders who do not hold employees accountable are doing them a disservice.  Employees believe they are fulfilling their role, because no one has advised them otherwise.  Then they are surprised, hurt and angry when they are fired. 

3. Turn uncertainty into action by breaking up large tasks into manageable chunks for their direct reports. Give people chunks of projects so they experience more wins at work.

4. Streamline internal processes.
Every organization has processes that are cumbersome, outdated, and irritating to those who have to work within those confines.  Examine everything for efficiency.  Simplify processes to better reflect reality.

5. Adapt rapidly to the changing needs of customer demographics.
Leaders have to understand and know their customer base as well as their emerging buyers.  Real market data is critical.  Leaders need to base decisions on reliable data. 

6. Simplify the buying process for customers and clients.
Make it easy for buyers to make the buying decision.

7. Focus on developing future products and services that enhance the lives of customers and clients. We exist to deliver better products, provide innovative solutions, and create solutions to problems before our customers realize that they have those issues. 

Planning your next event?
 Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event  a success!
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A Professional Speaker's Guide to Better Communication

7/1/2021

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By Mary Kelly

Communication is key when it comes to anything that involves other people. We humans are a social species, and communication is involved in nearly everything you do. And yet, so many of us get it wrong, even to those closest to us.

Some people are born with a natural ability to communicate well. Their communication methods seem to be easy for them and people gravitate towards them. Others may struggle with getting people to listen. Regardless of what category you fall into, it’s likely that you can benefit from improving your communication skills. 

Why Better Communication Helps Us

Did you know that most businesses consider your communication skills to be the most important characteristic about you? This means that you could have top-notch knowledge and job skills, but still fail to get the job of your dreams if you’re lacking good communication skills.

Communication is also critical to your personal relationships. Have you ever had a disagreement with someone in your family? Of course you have! Most arguments are the result of poor communication. Couples and family members that are good communicators lead happier personal as well as professional lives. 

Proper communication prevents misunderstandings, and saves time so you don’t have to repeat yourself. Fewer mistakes are made with good communication.

It is estimated that poor communication costs business 37 billion dollars a year globally. 

How Can Leaders Improve Their Communication With Others?

Communication is a two-way street, not a monologue. This means we might have excellent skills, but if the recipient doesn’t understand, then we have not communicated effectively. Remember, the onus of making sure the message is received is always on the person who is delivering the message.

As a leader, we can facilitate the process by being effective listeners as well. Great leaders make it easy for people to communicate with them, and they are able to absorb and synthesize information quickly. It takes practice. This is why it’s important not only to develop our speaking skills, but our listening skills, too.

We generally cannot affect the skill level of others, so we need to strengthen our own communication skills. As an excellent communicator, more people will understand us, everything around us will run more efficiently, and we get what we want accomplished.

To improve communication skills, try these 5 techniques:
  1. Avoid arguing. If you run into a snag in a conversation and it starts to morph into an argument, step back and realize what’s going on. It’s easy to get swept up into the blame game, but ultimately, blame does not accomplish anything. What’s important is the mutual understanding of the issue and a desire for a solution that benefits everyone. 
  2. Don’t be afraid to compromise. It is tempting to try to win every argument, but that’s usually not the best way to reach a mutual agreement. We may be happier in the short-term when we win, but it may come at the expense of the other person’s willingness to support the issue, which can cause further problems. A win-win is exactly that – a conclusion where both sides feel as though they benefit. Find a good compromise that everyone can support. 
  3. Work on actively listening. Our listening skills are even more important than our speaking skills. After all, how will we know what to say – and when – if we haven’t effectively listened? Listen more than you speak and you’ll gain profound wisdom and understanding of others. 
  4. Stay focused. Convoluted conversations can quickly head in the wrong direction, especially when emotions get involved. Try to remain focused on solving one issue at a time. We have all been in heated discussions that somehow involve ancillary issues. If needed, take a “pause.” Marshall and Lily do this on the TV show, How I Met Your Mother. If they are arguing, one of them can always hit the pause button. It doesn’t mean the argument is over, it means that they will resume it at another time. Avoid bringing up the past or other unresolved issues and, instead, focus on addressing one topic at a time.
  5. Stay calm and take responsibility. Calm is contagious. Adopt a calm decorum and develop the reputation for being reasonable and fair when handling difficult situations. Look at the facts, and make decisions based on information, not rumors, innuendoes, or feelings. When emotions remain under control, it’s easier to communicate, be heard, and get the point across. This also means we need to take responsibility for what we say. Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes when you’re wrong. At work or at home, when you are wrong, apologize. Sincerely and quickly. And move on.

Bonus: Let it go.
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Don’t hang on to arguments, either at home or at work, because you want to be mad. That is childish and unprofessional. We will not win every discussion. There will be disappointments. Life is full of disappointments. Once the issue is over, let it go.

Becoming a better communicator doesn’t happen overnight. But if we keep practicing and tweaking our skills, we will be surprised at what we can accomplish.

Planning your next event?
 Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event  a success!
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Leadership Is More Complicated than Ever - Here's Why

5/18/2021

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By Mary Kelly

Feeling overwhelmed by lunchtime? You’re not alone. Leaders are responsible for more moving parts than ever before. Let’s take a look at seven of the common – but complicated – reasons why leadership isn’t an easy role. 

  1. There are more variables now than there have ever been in the workplace. Leadership is more difficult now because there is simply more for leaders to know. There is more technology to master. There are more complications with supply chains, with global implications.  Human resources are more involved as employees worry about safety and health.  Budgets, taxes, and industry regulations seem to get more complicated by the day.
  2. The pace of change has accelerated. The last year prompted a forced acceleration in the pace of change. Leaders know managing change is a continuous process. Most people struggle with change because the habenula of our brains resists change.  Even though most people like the idea of positive change, our brains push back.  Most people, when faced with any kind of change, experience denial, resistance, exploration, and then finally some level of commitment. The ease with which people arrive at the exploration and commitment phase is directly linked with how the change is presented and implemented.  Direct supervisors are key. 
  3. The number of available resources and sourcing is no longer local, it is global. Leaders have to assess resource allocation based on international factors and world prices and delivery options.
  4. Products and services are more complex. The next wave of globalization is focused on information and services, and leaders need to be prepared to be adaptable, solve complex problems, and create ingenious solutions.
  5. Everyone in an organization needs to be customer-focused and sales-minded. Leaders have to lead the effort to create engaged employees who are intent on serving customers.
  6. Social issues have become business issues. Period. 
  7. Entrepreneurship is all about taking risks. Taking risks now can make or break a company. Leaders have to understand more about the risks they are taking, the unintended as well as the intended consequences, and the long-term impacts. Getting different perspectives from customers from different demographics will grow in importance as perceptions rapidly shift.

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