How to Get Fired!: The New Employee’s Guide to Perpetual Unemployment by Jeff Havens   Would you rather play video games and update your Facebook profile than suffer through a lifetime of stable employment? Does paying your rent seem like just too much of a hassle? Then you need How to Get Fired!, the only lecture guaranteed to ensure that you never become a productive member of society. A satirical masterpiece, How to Get Fired! introduces audiences to the Four Pillars of Poverty – fake your resume, establish your incompetence, destroy your work ethic, and alienate your coworkers – and will ‘encourage’ you to do the top ten things that most commonly cause employees to lose their jobs before wrapping up with a more serious discussion about how to successfully transition into the working world. Fast-paced, entertaining, and relevant, How to Get Fired! is utterly unique in the college market. To learn more, go to the Video Clips page and see for yourself why How to Get Fired! has quickly become one of the most popular college lectures in the country.

The first step is to frame your criticism with a well-chosen phrase that makes it sound like you’re actually trying to help the person you’re about to insult; that way, you will get the most pleasure out of their shock and pain. “No offense…,” for example, is an excellent choice for two reasons. First, nobody in the history of the world has ever said “No offense…” without following it with something moderately or entirely offensive. But more importantly, if the person you’re talking to gets upset, it’s really their fault, isn’t it? You weren’t trying to offend them – you just said so! – and they should really try to lighten up a bit. It’s airtight, and there are a lot of other phrases that are just as effective. “Don’t take this the wrong way…,” “I don’t mean to sound rude…,” “This isn’t going to sound the way I mean it…” – you get the idea.

The second step is the actual criticism itself – the meat of the insult, the heart of the wounding. All you have to do here is be original and descriptive. You want to hit people with something they aren’t expecting. “I don’t like you,” for example, is a very common insult, and as such is relatively ineffective at getting a reaction out of people. But if you were to walk up to a family member or coworker and say, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope you contract an intestinal parasite” – you’ll get so much more joy out of the expression on their face. The best insults take time to formulate, but the reward is well worth the time and trouble.

Now I suppose this approach could work both ways. That is, you could theoretically create original, descriptive, and meaningful compliments and praises for those around you. All of us need to hear those things from time to time, and just about anything is better than a half-hearted “Good job!” that sounds more like a way to fill silence than it does an earnest attempt at sincerity. I mean, just imagine the difference that a single word can make. “I love you” is well and good, but you’ve also said it a million times. But when was the last time you told your children or your spouse “I adore you,” or “I cherish you”?

Hmmm…

No. Never mind. Forget I said anything.

Jeff Havens is a former comedian turned college and corporate speaker. His latest comedy lecture, How to Get Fired!, helps prepare college students for their professional lives by ‘encouraging’ them to do each of the top ten things that most commonly cost people their jobs. The accompanying book, How to Get Fired!: The New Employee’s Guide to Perpetual Unemployment, is available in all popular retail outlets and online at www.Amazon.com and www.jeffhavens.com.

If you enjoyed this article, let us keep you up-to-date on other newly published insights by signing up for our complimentary StrategyDriven Newsletter

Copyright 2007-2010 by StrategyDriven, Inc. This content is intended for personal and non-commercial use only. All rights reserved.

Please consider the environment before and after printing this article.

How to Get Fired!: The New Employee’s Guide to Perpetual Unemployment by Jeff Havens   Would you rather play video games and update your Facebook profile than suffer through a lifetime of stable employment? Does paying your rent seem like just too much of a hassle? Then you need How to Get Fired!, the only lecture guaranteed to ensure that you never become a productive member of society. A satirical masterpiece, How to Get Fired! introduces audiences to the Four Pillars of Poverty – fake your resume, establish your incompetence, destroy your work ethic, and alienate your coworkers – and will ‘encourage’ you to do the top ten things that most commonly cause employees to lose their jobs before wrapping up with a more serious discussion about how to successfully transition into the working world. Fast-paced, entertaining, and relevant, How to Get Fired! is utterly unique in the college market. To learn more, go to the Video Clips page and see for yourself why How to Get Fired! has quickly become one of the most popular college lectures in the country.

Well then, fight back! If you would rather play video games all day than suffer through a lifetime of stable employment, here’s exactly what you need to do:

• Dress every day as though you’ve just woken up. Nothing says ‘disinterested in advancement’ like a man or woman too lazy to bother with basic grooming.
• Treat your job like college! In other words, do what you like when you like and ignore the rest. Show up when it suits you, skip meetings you expect will be boring or inconvenient, and save all your productive energy for the night before any project is due. You’ve had several years to perfect these skills, and if you continue putting them to good use you should ensure that the IRS never bothers to audit you. After all, why hassle a person without assets?
• Gossip! Remember how you’ve used your Facebook account to complain about the various problems of others? Well, no need to stop now! And since nothing on the Internet stays private, it’ll only be a matter of time before word trickles back to your boss about what you’ve been saying about him/her. And when it does, congratulations! You’ll never miss another mid-morning cartoon marathon in your life!

In all seriousness, those techniques are very effective at helping people lose their jobs. And if that’s your goal, you can stop reading now. However, if you actually want to keep a job – any job – for any length of time, here are a few things to consider:

• Under no circumstances should your parents accompany you on any interview. Nobody will hire anyone whose mommy and daddy need to do all the talking. Seriously, if they’re coming with you, why not just sit in the car and wait to see how it turned out. Then maybe they’ll take you out for ice cream afterwards!
• Do not use your social networking email as the contact email on your resume. It’s awfully hard to take anybody seriously when they ask you to contact them at vampiregirl23@facebook.com.
• Show up every day, on time. Not terribly profound advice, but it’s a habit school – especially college – doesn’t require you to develop. Your job will, though.
• Understand that you’re not going to start at the top unless you’re related to the person who hired you, of course. Otherwise, yours will be a slow and steady progression like everyone else’s, and if you want that progression to happen faster, you’ll concentrate on proving yourself first. If you expect to advance before you’ve demonstrated an ability to handle more and more difficult assignments, then you’ll be waiting for a long, long time.

There’s more to know and plenty of other behaviors to avoid, but this should get you started. So get out there and enjoy yourself because the ability to determine the path of your life, which your education has just given you, is a more incredible experience than you might expect. Don’t blow it.

Jeff Havens is a former comedian turned college and corporate speaker. His latest comedy lecture, How to Get Fired!, helps prepare college students for their professional lives by ‘encouraging’ them to do each of the top ten things that most commonly cost people their jobs. The accompanying book, How to Get Fired!: The New Employee’s Guide to Perpetual Unemployment, is available in all popular retail outlets and online at www.Amazon.com and www.jeffhavens.com.

Supercoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life by Michael Neill   “The world is what you think it is. Change the way you think and you will change the way you experience life,” says bestselling author and transformative coach Michael Neill, in his new book Supercoach: 10 Secrets To Transform Anyone’s Life. For more than twenty years, Michael Neill has been helping clients fulfill their dreams – whether they want to make more money, build their businesses, improve their relationships, or find greater contentment in their day-to-day lives. He shows them that meaningful transformation can be almost effortless. In Supercoach, Neill shares the advice that has worked so well for his clients, presenting ten coaching “secrets” that can be implemented at a reader’s own pace. Each secret, which is illustrated with case studies and anecdotes, is designed to be a catalyst – something that will spark a reader’s own insights about how he or she thinks, lives, and works. The book also includes specific actions that people can take to actually experience change and incorporate it into their lives. “The key to transformation,” explains Neill “is making changes from the inside out. When you learn to live your life from the inside out, stress disappears and worry becomes almost non-existent. You realize that you were born happy and the worst thing that can ever happen to you is a thought – a thought about whatever you think is the worst thing that could ever happen to you.”

Most of us become aware, at some point in our lives, of the price we pay for cutting ourselves off from our feelings. Like a river flowing against a dam, the more we resist feeling what we feel, the stronger those feelings can get. But what many people also fail to notice is how these repressed feelings and emotions get in the way of making sound business decisions.

Emma was struggling to keep her home-based business alive after about a year of very hard work and very limited profits. When she hired me to help her turn things around (or help her make peace with letting the business go), the first thing I did was introduce her to a thinking tool I use with many of my clients:

Imagine a robot who has been programmed with all the best business skills and business wisdom, but has no emotional circuitry whatsoever. No matter what is going on in your business, “Business Robot” will always make the decisions and take the actions that are most likely to lead to success both short and long-term.

Now imagine that Business Robot has been hired to run your company or take over your job for awhile – what would Business Robot do?

When I asked Emma, her first response was “he’d quit!” (Not sure why most people seem to make Business Robot a “boy-bot”, but they do!) After further questioning, she realized that in fact, the business was mostly on track – what had been troubling her was the pressure she’d been putting on herself to “make” it succeed more quickly.

A series of insights followed, including:

• Business Robot would institute a strict ABC priority policy and stick with it, not letting itself get caught up in other people’s sense of urgency
• Business Robot would work less hours, recognizing the value of focusing on work when at work and renewing energy and resources outside of working hours
• Business Robot would go through and do an 80/20 evaluation of which clients were bringing in the most money for the least effort and vice-versa – and then would use that information as a basis for prioritizing certain clients and “firing” others

Perhaps the biggest breakthrough Emma got from the exploration was when she realized that far from working harder or longer, Business Robot would hire an assistant to take care of the majority of the tasks she herself found so tiresome, leaving her free and energized to do the work that she loved and excelled at.

To put Business Robot to work in your own company, imagine that it has been brought in to run your company, take over your job, or manage your career:

• What would Business Robot do in the first week?
• What goals or targets would it set for the next month? Next quarter? Next year?
• What longer-term vision would Business Robot create for you business or career?
• Think of the biggest problem or sticking point you are facing in your work right now – what would Business Robot do in that situation?

The key to making this thought-experiment work for you is to realize that as Aristotle said, “a virtue is the mean between two vices”. Your goal is not to become more robotic – just to bring the wisdom of a mentally disciplined approach into balance with the feelings of your very human heart.

About the Author

Michael Neill is an internationally renowned transformative coach and the author of the new book, Supercoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life. For the past 20 years, he has been a coach, adviser, mentor, and creative spark plug to celebrities, CEOs, royalty and people who want to get more out of their lives. He hosts a weekly talk show on HayHouseRadio.com, and his daily and weekly coaching columns can be read on his website www.geniuscatalyst.com.

Business Innovation For Dummies by Alex Hiam   Alex Hiam (www.alexhiam.com) is the author of more than 20 books on marketing and business, and a go-to creativity and conflict expert for Fortune 500 companies and U.S. government clients. In his newest book Business Innovation For Dummies (Wiley, June 2010), he points to 10 practices that foster creativity, starting with recognizing creative enemies: lack of time, criticism by others, irregular sleep, and self-censorship. He offers practical techniques for stimulating imagination and developing ideas into successful innovations. Alex is a living testament to his creativity commandments, as demonstrated by 20 books, award-winning artwork hanging in galleries from New York to Rome, and his proudest legacy: five children. Alex’s books include Business Innovation For Dummies, Marketing For Dummies, Marketing Kit For Dummies, Vest Pocket CEO, The Wizard’s Guide to Taming the Conflict Dragon, and The Manager’s Pocket Guide to Creativity, and more.

1. Brainstorm strategies for making change. You and your coworkers have probably witnessed some improvements and changes. Even the most negative boss can’t stop all forward progress. So, ask yourself how those changes came about. What process is most acceptable to your boss? Who does he feel he has to listen to? Then recreate the successful strategies when you decide to propose something new.
2. Avoid too much interaction with a negative boss. Try to keep the face-time to the minimum required, and to keep it civil and polite. Spend as much time as you can interacting with people who are more positive and have a healthy can-do attitude, so your own attitude doesn’t turn negative too.
3. Innovate outside of work. Find ways to engage in creative, forward-thinking activities in volunteer work or a part-time extra job, internship or hobby, so you can stay fresh and get to strengthen your innovation muscles. A bad boss is no excuse to let your creativity atrophy!
4. Make suggestions on paper, not in person or by email, to give your boss time to digest them. The longer you can delay her response to a suggestion, the more likely he’ll get over her initial knee-jerk resistance to change and actually look at the idea on its merit.
5. Allow your boss to revise your idea and propose it as his own. I know, it’s so irritating when your boss rejects your suggestion, then proposes it himself a month later. But look at the bright side-at least this means there’s a way to make progress, even if it does involve accommodating an over-inflated ego.
6. Build your own coalition for innovation. Sometimes it’s possible to reach out to others in power in a workplace and build a strong personal network, based on your bright ideas and enthusiasm for positive change. If you can do so, do so! You may be able to work with your coalition to bring about innovation. Let them pull your boss’s strings and force him to bring your unit in line with the new direction you helped create.
7. Watch the bottom line and jump ship if your boss seems determined to run you up on the rocks. The biggest problem with change-resistant bosses is they don’t lead very well. Often, their department, division or business does poorly for lack of innovation. If that’s the story at your workplace, you probably should begin to look for another job with a better boss and more momentum. It’s hard to be a rising star when you’re working on a sinking ship.

Alex Hiam (www.alexhiam.com) is the author of more than 20 popular books on business, including Business Innovation For Dummies, Marketing For Dummies, and Marketing Kit for Dummies. A lecturer at the business school at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, he has consulted with many Fortune 500 firms and large U.S. government agencies.
 
 

Business Innovation For Dummies by Alex Hiam   Alex Hiam (www.alexhiam.com) is the author of more than 20 books on marketing and business, and a go-to creativity and conflict expert for Fortune 500 companies and U.S. government clients. In his newest book Business Innovation For Dummies (Wiley, June 2010), he points to 10 practices that foster creativity, starting with recognizing creative enemies: lack of time, criticism by others, irregular sleep, and self-censorship. He offers practical techniques for stimulating imagination and developing ideas into successful innovations. Alex is a living testament to his creativity commandments, as demonstrated by 20 books, award-winning artwork hanging in galleries from New York to Rome, and his proudest legacy: five children. Alex’s books include Business Innovation For Dummies, Marketing For Dummies, Marketing Kit For Dummies, Vest Pocket CEO, The Wizard’s Guide to Taming the Conflict Dragon, and The Manager’s Pocket Guide to Creativity, and more.

There are a lot of exciting new findings in brain research that suggest creativity involves complex coordination of many areas of the brain in particular, unique ways. Whereas we once might have described creativity as a sort of mental muscle that simply needed to be kept strong, now it appears that creative thought is a higher-level process involving the coordinated efforts of many mental muscles. Pumping a few ions every now and then in a brainstorming session won’t get you into peak creative shape, any more than lifting leg weights will prepare you to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. So, what can we do to be in peak creative condition?

Since creativity requires complex coordination of multiple brain areas and functions, from daydreaming to connecting distant thoughts, it’s important to exercise your creative coordination through a variety of complex creative challenges. Here is a great set of exercises you can use, alone or in a team or staff meeting, to increase creative strength and coordination within the brain:

• Think of ten ways for human beings to fly, aside from the obvious ones involving airplanes or helicopters (this exercise requires the group to think imaginatively and gets them in touch with their sense of fun and fantasy)
• Come up with ten ways to open a jar of jam whose lid is stuck (this exercise brings the group’s imagination into the practical realm and demonstrates that it can come up with useful insights)
• Design three options for “drops” in which one spy could hand off secret papers to another in a public place without any possibility of being seen or caught (this exercise engages the group in process brainstorming, which can be more difficult than product brainstorming)
• Invent a completely new kind of footwear that solves some major problem (this exercise requires people to brainstorm problems as well as solutions, which orients them toward opportunity-finding)

Exercises such as these, performed in sequence, can do a great deal to increase the power of your creative mental functions and prepare you to tackle important challenges at work. It may sometimes feel like play to do creative exercises, but as recent research into brain function shows, creative play uses the same highly-complex mental activities that you need to solve important problems or come up with new designs and inventions.

Alex Hiam (www.alexhiam.com) is the author of more than 20 popular books on business, including Business Innovation For Dummies, Marketing For Dummies, and Marketing Kit for Dummies. A lecturer at the business school at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, he has consulted with many Fortune 500 firms and large U.S. government agencies.
 
 

I recommend the following steps to clear your head and get fresh ideas growing and break the vicious cycle of busy-work that doesn’t seem to move you ahead:

Business Innovation For Dummies by Alex Hiam   Alex Hiam (www.alexhiam.com) is the author of more than 20 books on marketing and business, and a go-to creativity and conflict expert for Fortune 500 companies and U.S. government clients. In his newest book Business Innovation For Dummies (Wiley, June 2010), he points to 10 practices that foster creativity, starting with recognizing creative enemies: lack of time, criticism by others, irregular sleep, and self-censorship. He offers practical techniques for stimulating imagination and developing ideas into successful innovations. Alex is a living testament to his creativity commandments, as demonstrated by 20 books, award-winning artwork hanging in galleries from New York to Rome, and his proudest legacy: five children. Alex’s books include Business Innovation For Dummies, Marketing For Dummies, Marketing Kit For Dummies, Vest Pocket CEO, The Wizard’s Guide to Taming the Conflict Dragon, and The Manager’s Pocket Guide to Creativity, and more.

1. Clear some time and space. A cluttered desk or calendar will keep good ideas from developing. There’s a good reason why farmers plough and weed their fields. You need to cultivate your imagination in much the same way. Block out some chunks of time and give yourself a neutral space to sit and think – or if it suits you better, to walk and think. DON’T sit amidst your piles of files of unfinished business.

2. Expand your viewpoint. Gather new information that is both broad in scope, and detailed in depth. Seek multiple ways of looking at or understanding the current challenge, problem, project or goal. Fresh information is the fertile soil in which fresh ideas grow.

3. Nurture multiple ideas. Come up with at least three – hopefully a dozen or more – possible ideas, designs, solutions or strategies before you try to narrow it down to a single solution. If you don’t see enough innovative approaches yourself, then enlist help by holding a group brainstorming session. Expanding your options is like sowing many seeds – it maximizes the chances of a strong one gaining momentum.

4. Narrow it down to the single most promising idea. Weed out those other approaches or designs now, only after you’ve enriched your viewpoint and allowed your imagination to show you many new possibilities.

5. Run with it! Having opened up your calendar, gathered a rich variety of information, and generated lots of options, you are finally in a position to pick a winner and focus on it. Make a plan, enlist the support and resources you’ll need, and champion it all the way through to implementation.

Most people start at Step 5, trying to execute a solution or implement a plan long before they’ve given themselves enough time to generate any fresh insights or good ideas. As a result, people often feel like they are struggling to get things done. A mediocre or poorly thought through plan is a lot harder to implement than an innovative one!

Thinking of innovation as mental gardening can be helpful, since it reminds us that imagination needs to be given fertile ground, and then nurtured until the best idea reaches maturity.

Innovation is not like growing a field of wheat. We don’t need a million identical small ideas, we already have that in most workplaces. What we need is one big whopper of a breakthrough. So think like the farmer who’s trying to raise a prize-winning pumpkin. Start with lots of good seeds and fertilize them well. Then narrow it down to the strongest plant. Finally, pinch off all but the largest pumpkin on that healthy vine, and give it all your resources until it’s ready to load up on the truck and bring to the fair.

Alex Hiam (www.alexhiam.com) is the author of more than 20 popular books on business, including Business Innovation For Dummies, Marketing For Dummies, and Marketing Kit for Dummies. A lecturer at the business school at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, he has consulted with many Fortune 500 firms and large U.S. government agencies.
 
 

The implication is that innovation proceeds in a neat, orderly progression, from our hero recognizing the need, to testing solutions, and finally, rolling out the best one and smiling all the way to the bank.

Business Innovation For Dummies by Alex Hiam   Alex Hiam (www.alexhiam.com) is the author of more than 20 books on marketing and business, and a go-to creativity and conflict expert for Fortune 500 companies and U.S. government clients. In his newest book Business Innovation For Dummies (Wiley, June 2010), he points to 10 practices that foster creativity, starting with recognizing creative enemies: lack of time, criticism by others, irregular sleep, and self-censorship. He offers practical techniques for stimulating imagination and developing ideas into successful innovations. Alex is a living testament to his creativity commandments, as demonstrated by 20 books, award-winning artwork hanging in galleries from New York to Rome, and his proudest legacy: five children. Alex’s books include Business Innovation For Dummies, Marketing For Dummies, Marketing Kit For Dummies, Vest Pocket CEO, The Wizard’s Guide to Taming the Conflict Dragon, and The Manager’s Pocket Guide to Creativity, and more.

Not so fast! The reality of innovation is very different from the historical depiction of it. Innovation is messy and wasteful, and it rarely moves in a straight line from problem to solution. The history of the light-bulb illustrates the gap between how we like to recall innovation, and how it really happens.

While Edison and his lab played an important role by contributing a design that made it into commercial use for a time, the fact is that Edison did not invent either the modern incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. Edison’s light bulb design, a thin piece of carbon in a vacuum, is not in use today. Our bulbs are either based on the tungsten filament patented by Willis R. Whitney in 1903, or the mercury vapor light patented by Peter Cooper Hewitt in 1901. Edison is not the father of modern light-bulbs, he is more like a first cousin twice removed.

Edison and his contemporaries were inspired by the work of Humphry Davy, an English scientist who, in 1800, showed that a piece of carbon would glow when electricity was sent through it. If anyone was truly at the beginning of the invention of the light-bulb, it was Humphry, but history does not remember it that way – probably because his invention just happened to be called the ‘electric arc,’ which does not have anything in common with our modern names for electric lights.

If we don’t use Edison’s light bulb design, did we even need Thomas Edison? Yes and no. We needed lots of inventors, creating choices and giving society opportunities to gain experience through real-world applications over a long period of time. And we needed the cross-pollination of ideas between these many inventors.

Edison is, of course, also credited with electrifying our modern world. This is as much of a myth as the light-bulb story. Yes, Edison’s firm did win early contracts to set up electric grids in various cities, but his direct current (DC) system proved far less efficient than Nicola Tesla’s alternating current (AC). Westinghouse and other contractors relied on Tesla’s AC patents to displace Edison’s system and electrify the nation. Edison found himself on a side branch of both the light-bulb and the electric grid.

Perhaps the smartest thing Edison did was to help build General Electric – which incorporated Edison’s initial firm along with others through mergers. General Electric was a great investment because it took a plural approach to light bulbs, using any and all good designs and patents to produce successful bulbs for commercial use. It hardly mattered that it did not commercialize Edison’s filament. The point was to produce something that would sell well.

Edison is a brilliantly famous inventor. However, often the less-luminary innovators are more likely to collaborate and cross-pollinate, and therefore to find their way to the central stream of innovation as it evolves in its messy, multi-faceted way.

For my money, I’d rather model my efforts on inventors nobody recalls today, but whose patents proved to be the ones society built upon. They got to see their royalties grow exponentially. I’d rather bet on growing royalties than a growing reputation. However, it might just be possible to get the credit and the profits by remembering that everything you learned about famous inventors is a myth, and by following three simple rules of real-world innovation:

1. Don’t stop after your first design is done. Develop (and if possible, patent) multiple designs. There is always a pack of candidates, so no single approach is all that likely to emerge as the hands-down winner. Improve your odds by taking more than one approach. When it comes to innovation, the old adage about eggs definitely applies: Don’t put them all in one basket. A plural strategy works best.

2. Coin a catchy name or term. Branding is really the key to getting credit in most cases. If you insist on giving your invention a complex or technical name, know this: History is not all that likely to give you the credit you may feel you deserve. So talk to a branding or naming expert if you can’t come up with something catchy yourself. The person whose name sticks to an innovation is almost always the one who gets the credit.

3. Collaborate. Don’t fall prey to the myth that innovations arise from the lone genius working in isolation. In fact, it takes many creative people, approaching from different directions, to break through all the mental and practical barriers and bring something new to its full fruition. If you reach out to share ideas and learn from others, you are more likely to find and work on the main trunk, rather than be relegated to a side branch as the innovation grows and develops.

In reality, innovation is a messy process with redundancy and variations on themes. It’s impossible to predict which design will emerge as the main commercial success. Even recognition is not enough to insure ultimate success. Model your approach on the reality of how innovation occurs, not the neat, heroic version in our history books.

Alex Hiam (www.alexhiam.com) is the author of more than 20 popular books on business, including Business Innovation For Dummies, Marketing For Dummies, and Marketing Kit for Dummies. A lecturer at the business school at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, he has consulted with many Fortune 500 firms and large U.S. government agencies.
 
 

Special Edition 37 – An Interview with Ann Marie Sabath, author of Business Etiquette explores the often unwritten and unspoken rules of behavior for the business world that when applied differentiate business professionals from businesspeople; setting them apart and helping them climb the corporate ladder. During our discussion, Ann Marie Sabath, author of Business Etiquette: 101 Ways to Conduct Business with Charm and Savvy and President of At Ease, shares with us her insights and illustrative examples regarding:

• the default rules of etiquette for unfamiliar situations and those for which there are no rules
• impact of increasing workplace diversity on business etiquette protocols and the importance of the Platinum Rule
• resolving conflicts between etiquette and efficiency
• rules of email and Blackberry^® etiquette
• handling situations in which you will be late (e.g., a meeting or task)
• dealing with unfamiliar acronyms and technical terms during conversations in business and social settings

Additional Information

In addition to the invaluable insights Ann Marie shares in Business Etiquette and this special edition podcast are the resources accessible from her websites, www.AnnMarieSabath.com and www.CorporateEtiquette.com.   Ann Marie’s book, Business Etiquette, can be purchased by clicking here.

Final Request…

The strength of our community grows with the additional insights brought by our expanding member base. Please consider voting for us on Podcast Alley by clicking here. Casting your vote for the StrategyDriven Podcast improves our ranking and helps us attract new listeners which, in turn, helps us grow our community. Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Podcast!

Ann Marie Sabath, author of Business Etiquette, is President of At Ease, a nationally recognized protocol and etiquette firm. She has trained more than 90,000 individuals at companies such as Fidelity Investments, Monster.com, Deloitte & Touche, and Marriott International. The first and second editions of Business Etiquette have been recognized by the Oprah Winfrey Show, The New York Times, and Entrepreneur magazine. To read Ann Marie’s complete biography, click here.

Why?

Perhaps the better question is – What can we do to remove the ‘dread factor?’

One way is to identify the five most important tips and make sure all your managers get a copy.

The Essential Performance Review Handbook: A Quick and Handy Resource For Any Manager or HR Professional by Sharon Armstrong   Performance reviews can be one of the most anxiety-provoking aspects of work life – for supervisors and employees alike. However, performance reviews are a fact of work life, and they can be effective tools to foster growth – not only for the employee, but for the company as well. Retaining really talented employees is critical to the success of any business. Employees also need to know that their contributions are valued. The Essential Performance Review Handbook will teach readers the elements to creating “pain-free” performance reviews, including: Goal setting. Effective observation. Practical documentation. Ongoing communication. The Essential Performance Review Handbook is an easy-to-use resource for any manger. The book contains guidelines, sample evaluation forms, and real-life performance-review problems and guidance in how to handle them.

Tip #1 – Take time to prepare

Start by familiarizing yourself with the form and the ratings. Think about the goals each employee has been working on, the employee’s strengths and areas for development. Pull out all the examples and observations you’ve collected throughout the review period and add them to the appraisal form to support your ratings.

Plan your discussion in detail – not just compliments, but also areas for improvement.

Then, schedule the meeting and plan enough time for a thorough discussion. Select a time when you and the employee are not under pressure.

Tip #2 – Start the meeting in a positive way

Always conduct a warm-up and try to put the employee at ease. Stress the routine nature of it and tell the employee you have many positive things to say (if that’s true).

Outline what you want to cover and in what order. Let the employees know he or she will have a chance to raise issues and be an active participant in the meeting.

Explain that appraisals are designed to help the employee know how he or she is doing. Make sure you are on the same track in terms of realistic goals and priorities.

Provide a forum for problem resolution and feedback to help the employee succeed.

Tip #3 – Plan the discussion in detail

Start with the positives. Say things like “You’ve made important contributions this year.” “I’m impressed by your performance on _________.” “You’ve been more conscientious about ________.” “I was pleased to see ______________.”

Work your way through each section of the form– use it as a tool for facilitating discussion.

Review significant accomplishments – give praise and credit (nothing is more stimulating/motivating).

Ask open-ended questions to get a general reaction. Many start with “How do you think things have been going” “Do these ratings seem fair?” “What would you do differently?”

Consider asking other questions to facilitate discussion: What did I do for you in the last 6 months that really helped your performance? What hindered your performance? What can I do in the next 6 months to help you? What do you want most from your job? Under what conditions do you do your best work? How would you like to receive suggestions for improving your work? How can I help you reach your career goals? What inhibits your best work?

Discuss areas where the performance falls short – with specific examples. “I was concerned _______________.” Focus criticisms on performance, not personality characteristics.

Don’t discuss areas for improvement in a way that will seriously disturb a good employee. The net result is to be encouraging. Identify specific actions the employee can take to improve performance. Ask for their suggestions.

Work for understanding rather than complete agreement. You can agree to disagree.

Tip #4 – Close the meeting in a positive way

It’s just as important to end the meeting in a professional and positive manner, as it was to start the meeting. You want the employee to leave the discussion with a positive impression of the process.

Ask the employee to summarize what was discussed.

If the employee introduced issues that would make you consider changing their evaluation, apologize for your oversight and tell employee you would like a few days to consider how this information might effect your evaluation.

Settle on a plan for the future. It’s important to let the employee have input. Write goals together. Make them measurable, challenging but achievable.

Offer your help. Express confidence that the two of you can successfully work through any issues.

Think about training, skills development, opportunities or added responsibilities.

Ask the employee to add any last thoughts/ questions/ reaction to the performance appraisal meeting; (“What’s been learned?” “Surprises?” “Was it fair?” “Your general reaction?” “ If you have more reaction later, my door is open.”).

If the employee disagrees with any points brought out, let him or her know he or she has the response options offered by your organization.

Share your ideas on where the dept is headed. Employees want to be in the loop.

Close on a friendly note – let them know they’re part of the team, that their performance matters to the company and the department.

Both sign and date form. Explain that signing the form merely indicates that the form has been discussed with him or her and indicate the date of the appraisal discussion.

Tell them you’ll continue to give feedback throughout the year.

Tip #5 – Remember your follow-up responsibilities

Follow up on commitments you’ve made for support, training, etc.

Begin observations for the next performance discussion with employees and record them!

Following these simple steps will eliminate the stress and uncertainty usually associated with performance appraisals. Now your managers can start to focus on making the performance appraisal a powerful management tool.

Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization by Micah Solomon and Leonardo Inghilleri   “Filled with treasure and big ideas, this book will help you become exceptional.” – SETH GODIN In a tight market, your most powerful growth engine and your best protection from competitive inroads is this: put every thing you can into cultivating true customer loyalty. Loyal customers are less sensitive to price competition, more forgiving of small glitches, and, ultimately, become “walking billboards” who will happily promote your brand. In Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit insiders Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon reveal the secrets of providing online and offline customer service so superior it nearly guarantees loyalty. Their anticipatory customer service approach was first developed at The Ritz-Carlton as well as at Solomon’s entertainment and technology company Oasis, and has since proven itself in countless companies around the globe from luxury giant BVLGARI to value-sensitive auto parts leader Carquest, and everywhere in between. Now, readers can take the techniques that minted money for these brands and apply them directly to their own businesses. As Ken Blanchard writes, “Leonardo and Micah’s philosophies, rules, and winning examples of service excellence will make you want to implement their suggestions immediately in your own organization.” Filled with detailed, behind-the-scenes examples, the book unlocks a new level of customer relationship that leaves your competitors in the dust, your customers coming back day after day, and your bottom line looking better than it ever has before.

1. Did you shine that doorknob? Research shows that customers remember the first and last minutes of a service encounter much more vividly — and for much longer — than all the rest of it. Make sure that the first and final elements of your customer interactions are particularly well engineered, because they are going to stick in the customer’s memory.
2. Set your clocks forward: Modern customers expect speedier service than did any generation before them. (Not only speedier than their parents expected, but even than their older sisters and brothers expected.) In this age of Blackberrys and iPhones, of Amazon.com and Zappos, you may as well not deliver your product or service if you’re going to deliver it late.
3. Customers want to connect with a real person – online or off. For example, instead of a web-based chat window that blandly announces “you are now chatting with Jane,” try “you are now chatting with Jane Yang-Katzenberg.” The customers will treat your “Jane” better, they’ll take her advice more seriously – and they’ll be more likely to want a committed customer relationship with her company.
4. Remember each returning customer. Whatever your business – and no matter how large, work to achieve the computer-assisted effectiveness of a beloved bartender, doorman, or hairstylist – the kind who would know Bob’s preferences, the name of Bob’s pet, when Bob was there last … Superb client tracking systems can create that same “at home” feeling in your customers – regardless of the size and price point of your business, and whether it exists online or off.
5. Anticipate a customer’s wishes. When a customer’s wish is met before the wish has been expressed, it sends the message that you care about the customer as an individual. That cared-for feeling is where you generate the fiercest loyalty.
6. Don’t leave the language your team uses up to chance. Develop and rehearse a list of vocabulary words and expressions that fit your business brand perfectly. For example, the expression “no worries” sounds fine if a clerk at a Portland Bose® Audio Store says it, but would be exceedingly off-brand for the concierge at The Four Seasons in Milan. Equally important, search and destroy any vocabulary words that could hurt customer feelings. For example, your service team should never tell a customer “you owe us.” (Try instead: “our records seem to show a balance…”)
7. Be patient when filling positions. In a superb service organization, a single disagreeable or unresponsive team member can erode customer loyalty and team morale. That is why it can be better to leave a position unfilled rather than rushing to hire someone unsuitable. More generally speaking, customer excellence is most fully achieved once you become expert at recruiting, selecting, training, evaluating and reinforcing the efforts of service personnel.

Micah Solomon is the co-author with Leonardo Inghilleri of Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization (AMACOM Books) and President of Oasis Disc Manufacturing. His free online resource site for customer service advice is CollegeOfTheCustomer.com.