The ability to speak and persuade your audience is one of the most important weapons you need in your arsenal if you want to grow as an entrepreneur and succeed. This is the story of Adam Braun, an ordinary person who followed his passion, defied the skeptics, conquered paralyzing stage fright, mastered his pitch, and created something extraordinary.

Every ninety hours the nonprofit Adam started with $25 — Pencils of Promise — opens a new school in developing regions. Today Adam’s organization has broken ground on 200 schools and delivered 15 million educational hours to children in Laos, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. It all started when Braun turned 25, left a six-figure job, and decided to create a life story worth telling. But first he had to overcome a terrifying fear of public speaking.

“The ability to captivate another individual through storytelling is essential to the early stage growth of a company,” Braun says. “I spent a lot of time refining how I presented our work through thousands of conversations. I learned the parts of our story that got people’s eyes to light up and their heads to nod. I also learned when they started to fidget or their eyes glazed over. Through persistent communication we refined the language through which we describe the organization. It still remains the most critical part of driving the growth of the organization.”

Braun wasn’t always a confident speaker. “You can’t find someone who was more scared of public speaking than I was. My heart raced, my hands were shaking, and my eyes would burn like I had just cut an orange and rubbed my eyes with it. My body would literally shut down,” he acknowledged. Braun realized he had to grow in confidence, refine his public speaking skills, and hone his pitch if he hoped to attract the really big donors required to take his nonprofit to the next level.

Three little girls that Braun met in the small village of Pha Theung, Laos, would prove to be his muse and they remain an essential component of his pitch. In March 2009 Braun was scouting the location for the organization’s first preschool. In the tiny village where the average family makes under $300 a year he met the girls who would become his first students. Braun took out a simple Canon point-and-shoot and recorded a short video. Adam shows the 40-second video in his presentations. “There’s an authenticity to the footage because it’s not super high quality and it’s in the first person. You feel as though you are witnessing a special moment. The video is less than one minute long and it’s a powerful element for drawing out an emotional response.”

Once the video is over Adam advances to a photograph taken four months later showing the same girls sitting in their seats in the first Pencils of Promise PMSEY school. “Showing the before and after is incredibly powerful and allows people to go on an emotional journey that elicits a lot of reaction,” Braun explained.

In one speech Adam was incredibly nervous and “consumed with anxiety.” His voice began shaking. His body was shutting down. “But when I showed the video of Nuth, Nith, and Tamund [the three preschool girls] I was reminded of why I was there and began to speak more confidently.” Braun received a standing ovation that day and his confidence was strengthened immeasurably. Braun learned two important lessons. First, the more you speak publicly the more confidence you’ll gain. “Put yourself in the arena. When you do it often enough you overcome personal challenges that lead to fear.” Second, confidence comes from talking about what you know, telling personal stories, and speaking from the heart.

Braun is a student of persuasion. He knows the human brain has an emotional and a logical, or “rational,” side. “The rational center leads us to make conclusions and the emotional center leads us to action,” says Braun. “A great pitch must acknowledge the viability of the product or service, but the focus must be on igniting the person’s emotional core. ”

After thousands of pitches, Braun has also learned a valuable lesson about one-on-one conversations. “I made the mistake early on of thinking I could win people over by giving them a compelling reason to change somebody else’s life. What I learned over time is that as humans we naturally have self-interests. The most powerful way to engage someone is to provide them with an avenue through which they can change their own life and feel good about doing so by changing another.” Braun achieves this goal by listening for 75 percent of the conversation and talking for the other 25 percent. “It’s not about the presenter; it’s about the chance that the audience has to become the hero by completing a well-defined task,” Braun suggests. “When I do a one-on-one pitch, I’m more interested in understanding the person on the other side of the table than in getting them to understand me.”

I believe that you cannot inspire others unless you’re inspired yourself. Braun is living proof of my theory. Although Braun refined his skills of persuasion over time, his energy and enthusiasm comes from his unshakeable commitment to make a difference and to design the life of his dreams. “Every person has a revolution beating within his or her chest. Regardless of age or status, if you’re not satisfied with the path you’re on, it’s time to rewrite your future. Your life should be a story you are excited to tell.”

Source: www.forbes.com

Fear of the unknown is very logical. Often however, when we overcome those fears, we can reap rewards that we never could have thought of achieving otherwise.

In addition to being a great novelist, Mark Twain was one of the most popular public speakers of his day. He too however was not someone who was born with this talent. In this address, which followed a musical recital by his daughter in October 1906, Twain recounts his first public appearance–“the first and last time” he experienced stage fright (also known as public speaking anxiety).

“My heart goes out in sympathy to anyone who is making his first appearance before an audience of human beings. By a direct process of memory I go back forty years, less one month–for I’m older than I look. I recall the occasion of my first appearance. San Francisco knew me then only as a reporter, and I was to make my bow to San Francisco as a lecturer. I knew that nothing short of compulsion would get me to the theater. So I bound myself by a hard-and-fast contract so that I could not escape. I got to the theater forty-five minutes before the hour set for the lecture.

It was dark and lonely behind the scenes in that theater, and I peeked through the little peek holes they have in theater curtains and looked into the big auditorium. That was dark and empty, too. By and by it lighted up, and the audience began to arrive.

I had got a number of friends of mine, stalwart men, to sprinkle themselves through the audience armed with big clubs. Every time I said anything they could possibly guess I intended to be funny, they were to pound those clubs on the floor. Then there was a kind lady in a box up there, also a good friend of mine, the wife of the governor. She was to watch me intently, and whenever I glanced toward her she was going to deliver a gubernatorial laugh that would lead the whole audience into applause.

At last I began. I had the manuscript tucked under a United States flag in front of me where I could get at it in case of need. But I managed to get started without it. I walked up and down–I was young in those days and needed the exercise–and talked and talked. Right in the middle of the speech I had placed a gem. I had put in a moving, pathetic part which was to get at the hearts and souls of my hearers. When I delivered it they did just what I hoped and expected. They sat silent and awed. I had touched them. Then I happened to glance up at the box where the Governor’s wife was–you know what happened.

Well, after the first agonizing five minutes, my stage fright left me, never to return. I know if I was going to be hanged I could get up and make a good showing, and I intend to. But I shall never forget my feelings before the agony left me, and I got up here to thank you for her for helping my daughter, by your kindness, to live through her first appearance. And I want to thank you for your appreciation of her singing, which is, by the way, hereditary.”

Under the title “Mark Twain’s First Appearance,” this speech originally appeared in Mark Twain’s Speeches (Harper & Brothers, 1910)

Various recent research studies have shown that to persuade people, you need to tell them a story. It’s a tool that’s more useful than PowerPoint presentations, say career experts, who note that storytelling can also be used on a day-to-day basis to sell ideas to one person or a hundred. But being an effective storyteller requires preparation.

Paul Smith had 20 minutes to sell the CEO of Procter & Gamble, and his team of managers, on new market-research techniques for which Mr. Smith’s department wanted funding. As associate director of P&G’s market research, Mr. Smith had spent three weeks assembling a concise pitch with more than 30 PowerPoint slides.

On the day of the meeting, CEO A.G. Lafley entered the room, greeted everybody and turned his back to the screen. He then stared intently at Mr. Smith throughout the entire presentation, not once turning to look at a slide.

“I felt like maybe I hadn’t done a very good job because he wasn’t looking at my slides like everyone else,” says Mr. Smith, who also noticed that the other managers didn’t seem very engaged. “It didn’t occur to me until later that he did that because he was more interested in what I had to say than in what my slides looked like.”

The experience prompted Mr. Smith to alter his approach. These days, he uses far fewer slides and a lot more anecdotes, turning his presentations into stories his audience can relate to instead of lecturing them on what needs changing. As a result, Mr. Smith says, he’s subsequently had much greater success getting his ideas across. In four subsequent presentations to Mr. Lafley and his team, they’ve followed along more closely, asked more questions and given better feedback, says Mr. Smith.

Even with digital and social-media tools, employees often struggle to convey ideas to each other, to managers and to customers. That’s why companies such as FedEx, Kimberly-Clark and Microsoft are teaching executives to tell relatable stories as a way to improve workplace communication. Move beyond facts and figures, which aren’t as memorable as narratives, says Cliff Atkinson, a communications consultant from Kensington, Calif., and author of “Beyond Bullet Points.” Many people in business think raw data is persuasive. But when you’re dealing with people from other departments and in different fields who don’t understand how you got that data, you can lose them pretty quickly.

“You have to step back and put yourself into their shoes and take them through the process of understanding,” says Mr. Atkinson. “That requires you to distill the most important facts and wrap them in an engaging story.” Find ways to connect with your audience on an emotional level, says Mr. Atkinson. Neuroscientists have discovered that most decisions—whether people realize it or not—are informed by emotional responses. Do some legwork to find significant events in your audience’s lives or your own that you can base your story on or use to reinforce your points, he says.

This can include dropping in anecdotes about taking care of a sick family member or a memorable customer story, says Mr. Smith, now a corporate trainer and author of “Lead With a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire.” Mr. Smith’s book mentions a story told by a single mother to P&G about the trade-offs that she made to support her children. Her experiences, more than anything else that year, convinced P&G executives to lower their price on shortening.

Mr. Atkinson suggests organizing your story into three acts and starting by establishing context. You want to let your audience know who the main characters are, what the background of the story is, and what you’d like to accomplish by telling it, he says. You might open, for example, by describing a department that’s consistently failed to meet sales goals. Move on to how your main character—you or the company—fights to resolve the conflicts that create tension in the story, Mr. Atkinson says. Success may require the main character to make additional capital investments or take on new training. Provide real-world examples and detail that can anchor the narrative, he advises.

The ending should inspire a call to action, since you are allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions about your story versus just telling them what to do. Don’t be afraid to use your own failures in support of your main points, says Mr. Smith. Whatever you do, don’t preface your story with an apology or ask permission to tell it. Be confident that your story has enough relevance to be told and just launch into it, says Mr. Smith. Confidence and authority, he says, help to sell the idea to your audience.

Source: www.wsj.com

Many entrepreneurs are so passionate about their new startup idea that they can’t believe any intelligent being, investor or customer wouldn’t react just as excitedly after a quick introduction. They don’t realize that they can often kill their credibility — and future opportunities — by communicating only with passion, responding with a cynical comment or giving up too soon.

The art of getting others to see things as you see them — usually called persuasion — is a key one for entrepreneurs, and it needs to be honed from the first day that you formulate your new idea. You have to persuade the right partners to join and build the solution, the right investors to fund it and the right customers to buy it. Good marketing is just a subset of these efforts and skills.

Take the story of the blind beggar and the advertising writer as an example. This story shows the difference that persuasion and effective communication can make to an idea.

An old blind man was sitting on a busy street corner in the rush-hour begging for money. On a cardboard sign, next to an empty tin cup, he had written: ‘Blind – Please help’. No-one was giving him any money. A young advertising writer walked past and saw the blind man with his sign and empty cup, and also saw the many people passing by completely unmoved, let alone stopping to give money.

The advertising writer took a thick marker-pen from her pocket, turned the cardboard sheet back-to-front, and re-wrote the sign, then went on her way. Immediately, people began putting money into the tin cup. After a while, when the cup was overflowing, the blind man asked a stranger to tell him what the sign now said. “It says,” said the stranger, “‘It’s a beautiful day. You can see it. I cannot.’ “

Much later it was interpreted into a popular video on the web. This story illustrates in a timeless way how important choice of words and language is when we want to truly connect with and move other people.

If a man wishes to become a great orator, he must first become a student of the great orators who have come before him. He must immerse himself in their texts, listening for the turns of phrases and textual symmetries, the pauses and crescendos, the metaphors and melodies that have enabled the greatest speeches to stand the test of time.

Winston Churchill is one of the most revered leaders in history. As the prime minister of Great Britain during World War II, he inspired the nation and the world with his passionate, compelling speeches. He was certainly one of the most influential persons in British history, and his speeches are consistently ranked as the best ever given. Here are a few lessons we can learn from Churchill’s magnificent oratory skills.

First, and perhaps most importantly, it’s possible to become a great speaker even if you’re not a natural at public speaking. Churchill himself was not born a great orator. In fact, he had a slight stammer and a lisp when he was young. He spent hours and hours crafting his speeches, practicing and perfecting each word. His good friend Lord Birkenhead said, “Winston has spent the best years of his life writing impromptu speeches.” He put in countless hours of work making his speeches flawless to incite inspiration in a desperate audience. His dedicated effort obviously made a difference to millions in an extremely trying time.

You don’t have to be a natural at presenting to be successful at it. Even one of the greatest orators of the twentieth century had to practice, practice and practice to perfect the craft. “Continuous effort– not strength or intelligence– is the key to unlocking our potential,” Churchill said.

Churchill spoke in short, crisp sentences, which gave his speeches a poignant directness. He got his point across quickly and effectively. While he was eloquent and articulate, he was also blunt and concise. This is an extremely effective way to present. It’s important to speak with eloquence, but it’s also necessary to be clear and blunt. Remember, the average person has an attention span of 18 minutes. Keep your material crisp and tight, yet engaging.

Like all great orators, Churchill emphasized his speech with rhythm and repetition. His speeches’ rhythmic manner caused the audience to hang on his every word, waiting with bated breath for what came next. And like always, repetition reinforced the point to which he was speaking.

His most famous speech, We Shall Fight on the Beaches, given on June 4, 1940, employed both of these methods. Consider this quote from the speech: “A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valor, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, is manifest to us all.” Notice the repetition with by, by, by, and say it aloud to hear the rhythm. Or of course the memorable line “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” The poetic usage of the phrase “we shall fight” which lends it a awe inspiring aura. It just sounds great.

Repetition is the easiest to use, in terms of employing its use and the effectiveness of doing so. The audience is guaranteed to better remember the information presented if you do so.

Churchill was also masterful at using vivid imagery. He spoke in a grand, epic way with brilliant words and moving description. He spoke in a way that painted a picture in the mind of the listener. This was especially important in the early twentieth century when the purely auditory radio had to suffice for information and entertainment. People wanted to paint a picture in their mind while listening to a speech, and Churchill achieved precisely that. Take, for example, this excerpt from We Shall Fight: “They had to operate upon the difficult coast, often in adverse weather, under an almost ceaseless hail of bombs and an increasing concentration of artillery fire. Nor were the seas, as I have said, themselves free from mines and torpedoes. It was in conditions such as these that our men carried on, with little or no rest, for days and nights on end, making trip after trip across the dangerous waters, bringing with them always men whom they had rescued.”

Listeners can create a clear picture in their mind of the scene Churchill is describing. “Ceaseless hail of bombs,” “nor were the seas free from mines and torpedoes,” “days and nights on end.” This vivid description creates a scene, a remarkable scene that doesn’t leave the mind quickly. Use as much vivid imagery as possible throughout a presentation. Again, this is the kind of thing that sticks in the audience’s mind. It emphasizes the story aspect of a presentation. Audiences remember vivid, engrossing imagery.

Source: www.ethos3.com

One of the key points to keep in mind when delivering a public speech is the ability to grab the audience’s attention. After you grab their attention, it is also important to retain it. Some great speakers have been known to use various literary techniques to entice the audience and keep them interested. Take for example the historic “I have a dream” delivered by Martin Luther King Jr., where the civil rights leader used the phrase poetically in nine succinct paragraphs.

Excerpt from the speech: Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

One of the most persistent myths is the notion that inspiring leaders who are great in front of an audience are naturally gifted speakers. It’s quite the opposite. Nobody’s been born holding a PowerPoint clicker in their hand. Leaders who are “gifted” in the art of delivering presentations worked at it really, really hard over many, many years. Most of us see the end result but we don’t see what it took to get there. This is true of business leaders as well as many leaders on the world stage.

Nothing ever comes easy. Great public speakers look effortless because they put a lot of effort into being great.“Up until the age of 20, I was absolutely unable to speak in public,” says billionaire Warren Buffett in the new book Getting There: A Book of Mentors by Gillian Zoe Segal. “Just the thought of it made my physically ill.” When he started his first job selling securities Buffett realized that public speaking skills were a requirement for success. He signed up for a Dale Carnegie course. Warren Buffett considers his Dale Carnegie diploma the most important degree he has. “I don’t have my diploma from the University of Nebraska hanging on my office wall, and I don’t have my diploma from Columbia up there either—but I do have my Dale Carnegie graduation certificate proudly displayed.”

Buffett didn’t end his public speaking training after the course finished. He immediately signed on to teach a class at the University of Omaha. “I knew that if I did not speak in front of people quickly I would lapse back to where I’d started.” According to Buffett, learning to be a better public speaker “certainly had the biggest impact on my subsequent success.”

For example, in 1964 Senator Barry Goldwater lost the presidential election in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson. Bad news for Goldwater turned out to be good news for one up and coming speaker: Ronald Reagan. According to H.W. Brands in the new biography, Reagan: The Life, one nationally televised speech, which Reagan gave in support of Goldwater, propelled Reagan to the top of the party. After the speech, “Many Republicans concluded that their party had nominated the wrong man,” writes Brands.

While Reagan may have been surprised at his good fortune, Brands makes the argument that Reagan wasn’t unprepared. “He had been honing his broadcast skills since his days in radio, and all those talks for GE had served like a long off-Broadway run before a main-stage premier.” Brands is referring to the eight years that Reagan spent as host of General Electric GE -0.22% Theater on television. As part of his contract he toured forty states, giving speeches to a combined 250,000 employees at 139 GE plants across the country, honing and refining his presentations with every speech. In fact Reagan was still unsteady in his speech at the Goldwater convention. Brands writes that Reagan was ‘awkward’ until mid-way through the speech when the crowd rose up and applauded a line. “Their encouragement calmed Reagan down.”

Reagan was elected Governor of California two years later in 1966. Most of us know Reagan as “The great communicator” for his inspiring speeches during his presidency, but few people know that Reagan became great only after years and years of speaking in front of an audience.

There are two lessons to take away from the careers of Buffett and Reagan. First, take every opportunity to give a presentation in front of an audience, no matter how small. The more you do it, the better you’ll get. Second, don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll never be a great speaker simply because you might feel uncomfortable today. I’ve met plenty of leaders who were not only uncomfortable—they were downright terrified of public speaking at one point in their lives. Today they’re considered among the world’s most inspiring speakers. You have the same potential. Don’t talk yourself out of it.

Source: www.forbes.com

It is often the case that managers come across employees who have a very low level of self efficacy. In such circumstances, it is very difficult to motivate these individuals and to get good results out of them. Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s subjective beliefs about his/her capability to succeed at performing a specific task. People usually possess differing degrees of self-efficacy about various tasks. For example, some believe they are good in math but not so good in chemistry, while for others it is the other way around. In general, the more self-efficacy an individual has, the more motivated and persistent he/she will be in accomplishing a task, and the more difficult tasks he/she will attempt and succeed at. Feelings of self-efficacy start developing in early childhood and continue throughout an individual’s life; they are not constant and fixed and can be enhanced or diminished. Studies have indicated that motivation will increase as perceptions of self-efficacy increase.

Larry is 26 years old. He has been working for a media design company for two years. He is a talented individual but not very self-confident and assertive. His manager, Jane, notices his talent and potential but also realizes that those qualities do not always translate into superior performance. She wonders what factors prohibit him from delivering better results at work.

After talking to Larry, Jane realizes that he doesn’t believe he is very talented and creative. Because of his low self-efficacy for his job, he does not feel that trying harder will bring about superior performance or desirable outcomes, such as respect of others and positive performance rating. He has many ideas for projects the company is working on but he usually just keeps them to himself because, in his opinion, they don’t fall in line with company’s direction. Jane really likes some of Larry’s designs and does think that they follow with the company’s direction. She devised a plan to bring Larry out of his shell and help him perform on a higher level.

Jane gave Larry assignments that progress from easy to difficult levels. Successfully accomplishing progressively difficult tasks helped Larry realize that he is competent at his job and capable of superior performance. Allowing him to work on tasks at which he excels, as well as offering opportunities to try new task, challenged him and encouraged a balance of success and personal and professional growth for Larry.

Jane encouraged Larry to observe other people at company meetings, note how forthcoming they are in bringing up their ideas and suggestions. The social and professional climate at the company was very supportive and non-judgmental; no idea is looked down upon, no matter how outlandish. After all, the job they are doing is all about creativity and thinking outside the box. This experience helped Larry become more vocal and forthcoming with his ideas. By watching his peers, he first learned to repeat or to mimic their ways and then finally develop his own. The full engagement with the mentors also promoted social interaction which led to a higher self esteem and confidence in himself.

Jane also gave Larry plenty of encouragement overall. For example, after every assignment was accomplished, Larry received encouraging and supportive feedback in front of the entire group. This public acknowledgement in front of his peers built and encouraged his self-confidence. With this feeling of respect among his co-workers, Larry stopped feel so timid or scared to step up. This step aided in restoring and strengthening Larry’s confidence in his abilities.

In order for Larry to be able to associate certain levels of accomplishments with different emotions, Jane also allowed him to perform certain tasks under different scenarios and circumstances. Individuals perform differently based on the environment they are working in. It is like a trial by error situation; Larry may perform the same task more efficiently by feeling more pressure or the total opposite and altogether fail. Jane allowed him to experience different situations. Given the opportunity to work in different conditions, Larry gained a self knowledge of how to handle any situation as it arises. This exercise helped increase Larry’s self-efficacy to believe in his ability.

At the end of the action plan, Jane had finally managed to transform Larry into a more confident and able individual and he also started to churn out much better results in terms of work performance.

If you are faced with a situation where you need to work people who do not have any belief in themselves, it is important for you to show that belief in them. Believing the best in people usually brings the best out of people. As Mark Twain once said, “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

When LouAnne Johnson got out of High School, she discovered she didn’t much care for college. She lasted forty five days before dropping out and enlisting in the US Navy. There she flourished. She served eight years and along the way she earned a degree in psychology. Then she decided to join the US Marines, completed officer candidate school and served as a second lieutenant. But nine years into her military career, Johnson did some soul searching and decided to leave the service.

For a while she worked at the New York Times in sales, where she earned a good salary. But she didn’t find it rewarding enough. She had been reading about kids graduating from school who couldn’t read, couldn’t write and didn’t have the basic literacy skills. She thought it was criminal. She moved to the West Coast, took a job as an executive assistant at Xerox and returned to college to earn her master’s degree. Her desire was to become a teacher. She decided she would rather make much less money and do something that was really important. When Johnson completed her degree, she took a position as an intern at Parkmont High School in Belmont, California, a town south of San Francisco.

“What they didn’t say was that this veteran teacher had been driven off by the kids” recalls Johnson. “That first day they were just wild. They acted like I wasn’t there.” She came back the next day with great resolve. She continued, “I told them I was too young to retire and too mean to quit.”

She quickly developed strategies for connecting with the students. “I tried to use humor rather than threats,” explained Johnson. “Sometimes I would get on my knees and say: ‘Please don’t make me beg. It’s so unattractive.’ You can’t be a tough guy when you’re smiling at the teacher.”

But more than anything else, her deep belief in her students won them over. A practice she developed for the first day of class- something she called her “card trick”- is typical of the kinds of things she did. She passed out index cards for students to supply name, address, phone number, and personal information. While they completed the cards, she walked the room with her roll sheet, glancing at their cards to see their names, which she secretly memorized. As each teenager finished the information, she picked up each card and individually thanked each student. When she had all of the cards, she announced that the students were about to have their first test. The grumbling began, but she let them know that the test wasn’t for them- it was for her. If she could name each student, she would win. If she missed even one name, every student would get an automatic A on the first test. After she named every student, many of the kids were impressed. And she told them “I know your names because you are important people to me. When I look at you, I see you. I like you. And I care about you. That’s why I am here.”

Johnson’s attitude wasn’t restricted to parlor tricks. She lived it out every day. Once, when a student named Raul was in debt for one hundred dollars to a street tough, Johnson lent him the money. But it was on one condition; Raul could pay her back only on the day he graduated.

Johnson believed in her students so much that they began to believe in themselves. Raul, whose mother and father had stopped going to school in second and third grades, hung in there and graduated. He is the first person in his family to earn a high school diploma.

Source: Winning with people, by John C. Maxwell

One of the most difficult tasks for a manager is to identify and deal with problem employees. As a manager, you might have to deal with your employees coming up to you and complaining about various issues. It is very important however that you scrutinize every complaint that comes to you and not get fooled by “The Bob Principle.” “The Bob Principle” as author John C. Maxwell mentions in his book Winning with People is that when Bob has a problem with everyone, Bob is usually the problem.

Have you ever known a person who had problems follow him wherever he went? That seemed to be the case with Billy Martin. When he got called up to the Yankees in 1950 as a second baseman, he was joining one of the best baseball teams of all time. And Martin held his own. He performed especially well during the World Series games and was named Series’ MVP in 1953. While he was with the Yankees as a player (1950-57), the only year they did not win the series was 1954, the year Martin was in the army.

But despite his success, Martin’s life was never smooth sailing. The problem was that he often seemed to have a hard time getting along with people. The reason he left the Yankees after seven seasons is that he was traded following a big fight in a night club involving other Yankees players. After Martin left the Yankees, he played for six other teams in four years. He retired in 1961 and went on to coach. In 1969 he became a manager. But everywhere he went, trouble followed. He was legendary for the fistfights he started.

The fights and insobriety continued into his managerial career. In 1969 during his tenure as manager of the Minnesota Twins, he beat up his star pitcher Dave Boswell and was fired. In 1974 with the Texas Rangers, he popped the team’s 64 year old travelling secretary in a fight over a proposed club for the team’s wives. Hired back as manager of the Yankees in 1977, he took the team to a world title, but was, at one point, seen battling with Reggie Jackson in the dugout during a nationally televised game, and was again relieved of his position.

The early eighties were the usual for Martin. Hired, fired, and rehired by the Yankees again, Martin drank and brawled his way out of every job he ever had. His teams almost always won, but the price of living with Martin was too much. Martin was continually ejected from games and often suspended for his treatment of umpires. And he didn’t get along with the owners of the teams that employed him either.

Billy is the perfect example of the Bob principle. If Bob has a problem with Bill, and Bob has problems with Fred, and Bob has problems with Sue, and Bob has problems with Jane, and Bob has problems with Sam, then Bob is usually the problem. Quiet often, Bob will create a toxic environment in the workplace. It is important for you to decide whether such a person is really worth having in your office.

When a negative person like Bob tries to drop a problem in your lap, respond with something positive. If the comment is about a situation, try to find a bright side. If it’s about a person, point out a positive trait you’ve observed. Anytime a person’s motives are being critiqued, the best thing is to give him the benefit of the doubt. No one should presume to know the heart of another person. Believe the best in others and express that belief, unless the individuals prove otherwise to you personally.

Not everyone will respond positively to your suggestions. But if you have a strong connection with Bob or you are in a position of authority with him, then ask him to THINK before he speaks. But finally if everything is lost and you supervise one or more Bobs – and you can’t or don’t want to remove them from your team – then do damage control by isolating them. Don’t let the negativism spread.

Source: Winning with People, by John C. Maxwell

It’s easy to let angry customers walk out the door after you make a mistake. And sometimes, they’re going to leave no matter what you do to try and keep them. But successful businesses know that service recovery is one of the most important elements in customer retention. By following a few simple steps, you can turn upset customers into loyal, happy ones.

The Walt Disney Company is known for being a masterfully run company. In everything from logistics to leadership and marketing, Disney is looked at as a model business for others to learn from and emulate. In fact, businesses pay many thousands of dollars to send their employees to the Disney Institute to learn the company’s insights. And with more than 135 million people passing through the company’s parks and resorts each year, Disney has perfected the art of customer service recovery to create happy and loyal customers.

Their approach to service recovery is a five-step process, easily remembered with the acronym H.E.A.R.D:

• Hear

• Empathize

• Apologize

• Resolve

• Diagnose

1) Hear: Let the customer tell their entire story without interruption. Often when we’re upset, we just need someone to listen.

2) Empathize: Empathy is one of the most critical customer service skills you can possess. It’s the ability to deeply understand the thoughts and emotions of your customer, and making sure that they know that, too. You can use phrases like “I’d be upset too” or “I can see why you’d be frustrated.”

3) Apologize: As long as it’s sincere, you can’t apologize enough for screw ups. In one study at the Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, 37% of customers were satisfied with service recovery when they were offered something of monetary value (e.g., a refund or credit). But when the business added an apology on top of the compensation, satisfaction doubled to 74%.

4) Resolve: Resolve the issue quickly. This can only be done if your employees have the authority to do what it takes in terms of compensation, so make sure you’re empowering your team to act. If you’re not sure exactly what sort of compensation or resolution would be appropriate, ask the customer: What can I do to make this right? By showing an eagerness to do right by them, you can begin to bridge the gap between your customer’s dissatisfied state and where you want them to be.

5) Diagnose: Once the customer is satisfied, get to the bottom of why the mistake occurred, without blaming anyone. Remove any personal guilt and examine the processes related to the service failure. Returning customers will appreciate your efforts to improve the experience.

Customer Service Misses Are Opportunities, Not Outcomes.

Source: www.groovehq.com

Running a business or working in an office, you cannot expect that your work will always be perfect. Mistakes are bound to happen. And when mistakes happen, customers or clients or managers are bound to be unhappy with you. You thus find yourself in an uncomfortable and difficult situation. It is up to you, however, how well you can deal with the situation and handle the difficult people restoring your reputation.

On the last day of his trip, James — or, more accurately, his company — paid extra for a late checkout so that he could stay in his room to be on an important sales call. Knowing that he would need privacy, he hung the Do Not Disturb sign on his door right before the call. Sure enough, 20 minutes into James’ call, there’s a loud knock on his door.

He was distracted, but he ignored the knock, hoping that whoever was knocking would go away. Then came another loud knock. Just as he was excusing himself from the call (no doubt to the dismay of his boss) to answer the door, a hotel housekeeper slid their keycard into the lock and pushed the door open. As soon as she saw James with his headphones on, she apologized and left, but the damage was done.

The interruption had potentially cost him an important sale (though fortunately, it didn’t), and it ruined his experience at the hotel. James went down to speak with the hotel manager before he checked out. What happened next surprised him, to say the least: The manager listened to James’ entire story. Did he need the details about how important James’ call was? Of course not. But James was upset, and the manager understood that.

He also understood how important it was for James to feel like he was being heard, so he let James rant until he got everything out. Next, the manager apologized profusely. He took responsibility for the error, noting how upset he would be himself if the same thing had happened to him. He admitted that it was probably a training issue and that he would work with the housekeeping staff to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

Already, James was cooling off a bit. But then, the manager went a step further. He offered James a free night certificate that could be used at any hotel in the entire chain. In just a few minutes, James went from being a furious customer to a satisfied, loyal one. By the end of the meeting, he was brushing the issue off as a minor hiccup, even pointing out to the manager that housekeeping had been excellent throughout his stay, and asking that no disciplinary action be taken against the one who came into his room. According to James, she’s still there.

This happened in Seattle, and James continues to return to the same hotel by choice because of the way they recovered from their mistake.

Marketing professors Michael McCollough and Sundar Bharadwaj call this the service recovery paradox. The service recovery paradox is the result of a very positive service recovery, causing a level of customer satisfaction and/or customer loyalty even greater than that expected if no service failure had happened. Simply put, mistakes happen. They’ve always happened, and they always will happen. Good customer service isn’t about completely eliminating mistakes — a near-impossible task — but about leveraging the opportunity created by a mistake to build a deeper relationship with your customer.

Source: www.groovehq.com

Workplace bullying is a serious health and safety issue. The targets of bullying may suffer from physical and mental health problems that can last for many years. Bullying behavior also has serious consequences for businesses, including reduced production and failure to achieve workplace goals.

Belinda was an educator, working for Cynthia, creating materials for elementary and secondary students. As Belinda recorded uncomfortable events in her journal, she realized that Cynthia had initiated harsh, mean feedback both professionally and personally—about every third day. Sometimes the feedback had merit, but too many times it resulted in a psychological war that impacted other employees. Nobody was happy. The realization of the third day routine was the tipping point. What Belinda had thought was disciplinary incidents were actually workplace adult bullying stories.

According to Dr. Gary Namie and Dr. Ruth Namie in, Workplace Violence and Disruptive Behavior in Washington Psychiatric Settings, “Bullying is a systematic campaign of interpersonal destruction that jeopardizes your health, your career, the job you once loved.” Emotional and social harm is an outcome, resulting from non-physical emotional violence and abuse. Other people may see it more clearly than the victim. That is when you are facing adult bullying stories.

What did that mean? Belinda was proud that she was a long-term employee who could work for Cynthia. She sent several gifted friends to work for Cynthia, but those relationships lasted no more than a few months. “You are such a saint, putting up with Cynthia,” her friends said. Belinda thought it was a compliment, but it was not. It was a wake up call. Because Belinda’s financial well being was at stake, Belinda chose to be compliant.

According to a public television broadcast, This Emotional Life, which documented adult/workplace bullying. “Different from constructive criticism or conflict, bullying is persistent, it focuses on a person rather than a task.” The victim questions his or her ability to resolve the issue, does not know how to talk about it, how to tell the story, worries about who will believe him or her, may not have the documentation needed, along with a persistent fear that the bullying will escalate until a job is lost, a reputation is maligned, or there is violence and retaliation.

Cynthia’s assigned projects to several writers, projects as important as grade level workbooks—but provided no creative or philosophical direction. Her deadlines would come to maturity in a couple of weeks—all Cynthia wanted was a cut and paste job. Then she wondered why they didn’t work. The only feedback was a standard response, “It’s good, I think we’re headed in the right direction.” That meant Cynthia hadn’t looked at the material. As the project neared completion, she would berate the creators for being so far off track. As a result the employees did multiple rewrites—in a frenzy of hurry. Cynthia was insulting, raging at the writers, individually or collectively. These are not unusual workplace bullying stories.

In a study reported in Workplace Bullying and Disruptive Behavior: What Everyone Needs to Know “U.S. workers, 41.4% of respondents, reported experiencing psychological aggression at work in the past year, representing 47 million U.S. workers” (Schat, Frone & Kelloway, 2006). Their research suggests that 13% or 15 million workers experience bullying in the workplace.

The study on Adult Bullying Stories identified behaviors that were psychologically aggressive. Those include:

1. Unwarranted or invalid criticism

2. Blame without factual justification

3. Being treated differently

4. Being sworn at

5. Exclusion or social isolation

6. Being shouted at or being humiliated

7. Excessive monitoring or micro-managing

8. Being given unrealistic work deadlines

Belinda chose to leave Cynthia’s business, after a disrespectful incident, amid growing realizations that Cynthia was a corporate bully. Belinda found work quickly.

What are your options with these Adult Bullying Stories? First, you need to be clear about what is happening; journal about the incidents over time, perhaps three to six months. Look for repeating patterns of behavior. Second, tell your story in appropriate ways through the appropriate channels. You gather support from your Human Resources department or employee assistance program. Allow your company the first opportunity to make this right. They might not believe your story—for a while. But your documentation will help. Do not give them the originals. Third, corporations are loathe to bring in the police or the attorneys, although employees need to know that is a possibility—if there is violence, substance abuse, or threats. They will focus first on counseling and education. Then corrective action. Fair enough. Lastly, look for another job. Bullying leads to ineffectiveness and loss in productivity in the workplace, along with depression and anxiety. Best to make preparations for your own safety, productivity, and well being.

Source: www.nobullying.com

It is unfortunate that we live in a world where many are victims of bullying. We are witnessing a trend where age no longer matters when it comes to bullying, and it is no longer merely a dispute between two children on the playground or one child always taking another child’s lunch money. Bullying can now be observed among adults, including while at work; therefore, it is important to understand what is workplace bullying?

The Workplace Bullying Institute, defines workplace bullying as “repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators.” The bully can intimidate the target through verbal abuse, offensive behavior and even sabotaging the targets job.

Feeling threatened by a fellow co-worker often leads to a person to truly believe that his or her job is in danger because of the co-worker, they become the bully to save his or her own job. In the mind of the perpetrator, keeping the target controlled reduces the level of threat for the job he or she currently holds. Frequently, this type of behavior escalates to involve others who end up siding with the bully, either voluntarily or because they themselves were bullied into it. In many cases, the target is afraid to say something or to report this type of behavior for fear of retaliation from the oppressor.

After understanding what is workplace bullying, we can take a look at some early warning signs. You may be the target of bullying if you experience any of the following either at home with family or at work:

• Feeling sick and being tempted to call in sick to work on a regular basis

• Family members notice an unhealthy obsession with work while at home

•Experiencing high blood pressure in addition to other health issues

• Feeling too ashamed to admit being controlled by someone at work

• Using paid time off from work is for “mental health breaks”

• Feeling exhausted and lifeless during time away from work

• No longer enjoying favorite family activities

• Feeling you provoked the cruelty at work

• Attempting to do things you obviously cannot do and are told your work is never good enough for your employers/superiors

• Surprise meetings being to accomplish nothing else but to humiliate you more

• Co-workers expressing they have been told to stay away from you

• Constantly feeling agitated or anxious

• Never being able to do your job without interference

•You are yelled at/humiliated in front of others

• Being told by human resources that your harassment claim is not illegal and that you will have to work it out, but when you do try you are accused of harassment

• Always having your transfer requests denied

Workplace bullying can happen to anyone. It is not like schoolyard bullying, when children are targeted because they are introverts without any friends to help them stand up against the bullies. In the workplace, those who are targeted by the bully pose a threat of some sort. The bully may fear their coworker working harder or better than he or she is and that you could one day take their job.

Career Builder conducted a survey in 2012 and found that 35% of workers said that they have been victims of workplace bullying. 16% of those who claimed they were bullied reported suffering from health-related problems because of their job, whereas 17% said they eventually resigned from their jobs. Bullying in the workplace can come not only from the boss, but also from fellow coworkers, customers and those higher up in the company. Of those who felt they have been bullied in the CareerBuilder.com survey, 48% said it was from their bosses, 45% felt it was from their coworkers. More than half reported they were bullied by someone older than they were, and 29% said their bully was much younger.

The same survey revealed that the most common way workers are claiming to have been bullied was getting blamed for mistakes they did not make. Other bullying tactics found from the survey include being ignored, rumors and gossip being spread, belittling comments, stealing credit for work you did and purposely being excluded from projects or meetings you should legitimately be a part of.

If you feel you are being bullied in the workplace you need to take a look at all of the symptoms and review the definition of what is workplace bullying. After learning what is workplace bullying and if you truly believe you are a target of workplace bullying you need to:

• Keep a record of all incidents, including places, times, who was there, who was bullying and where it occurred.

• Talk to the bully. Explain that you feel you are being treated unfairly. He or she may not be aware they are making you feel this way.

• Focus on a resolution. Center you discussions around how you want to improve the working situation or how things can be handed differently.

• If you or someone you know is a target of a workplace bully, contact your human resources department or boss immediately. The sooner you find a solution, the sooner you can resolve any workplace issues.

Source: www.nobullying.com

We might not frequent playgrounds at lunch anymore, but that does not mean we have left everything reminiscent of those times behind. Call someone a bully, and usually the image evoked is a mean kid ruling the playground with the brute force of his fists, or a cruel girl with a sharp tongue to inflict more pain than a fist ever could. And while bullies grow up, they don’t always change. That girl who relied on gossip and put-downs to get ahead? She might sit in the cubicle next to yours. That guy that took pleasure in picking on those weaker than him? He might sit in the big corner office.

Bullying in the workplace is on the rise, according to research, yet few companies have policies in place to deal with this “silent epidemic”. Those that do often fail to carry them out properly. Michael Mercieca kept the faith and after seven years finally saw the courts order Microsoft to pay for bullying him to a near breaking point. The judge in the Texas employment labor law case, Tim Sulak, has issued a Final Judgement ordering Microsoft to pay $2 million in compensatory and punitive damages and legal fees. Judge Sulak found the tech giant guilty of “acting with malice and reckless indifference” in an organized office retaliation against salesman Mercieca.

The story began sometime before 2007 when Mercieca ended a relationship with a woman who went on to become his boss. Conditions at work began to change for him. Even though Mercieca went to the human relations department at Microsoft, the company did not act and allowed the behaviors to continue and even to escalate.

In addition to complaining about his own treatment in the workplace, Mercieca directly complained to Microsoft icon Steve Ballmer about sexist and racist comments made in the office by VP Eddie O’Brien.

“I wrote directly to Ballmer and told him what O’Brien said after the tsunami in Japan,” says Mercieca. “He said, ‘I would have zero pity for Japan. I would throw them right under the bus and create another tsunami if I have to.” That complaint to Ballmer, Mercieca maintains, was another reason his co-workers began to isolate him and make the workplace hostile toward him.

Mercieca and his legal team of two lawyers were up against 250 lawyers that Microsoft set to work on the case. Despite that, Mercieca and his lawyers Roy Pollack and Paul T. Morin of Austin, Texas, four years of litigation and some 90,000 documents eventually won the day.

“Rather than do the right thing, the management team went after Michael by getting a female employee to file a sexual harassment complaint and a complaint of retaliation against him,” says Paul T. Morin. “Microsoft could have taken Mercieca’s charges seriously and disciplined the senior manager but instead it engaged in the worst kind of corporate bullying.”

Source: www.lawyersandsettlements.com

As a manager, one goes through a lot of stress and has a lot of responsibilities. None greater than the responsibility of handling people. The company expects leaders to get results. So, more often than not managers end up focusing on results neglecting their people and becoming difficult bosses that people don’t enjoy to work with. It is very important that you do not become someone who does not intimidate your colleagues.

Jim Clifton, the CEO of the Gallup organization, found that 60% of employees working for the U.S. federal government are miserable — not because of low pay, poor workplace benefits, or insufficient vacation days — but because they have bad bosses. He goes so far as to report a silver-bullet fix to this situation: “Just name the right manager. No amount of pay and benefits will solve the problems created by a manager who has no talent for the task at hand.”

This matters so much for two very basic reasons. Bad Bosses Negate Other Investments: As Clifton points out, none of the other expensive programs a company institutes to increase employee engagement — excellent rewards, well-thought-out career paths, stimulating work environments, EAP programs, health insurance, and other perks — will make much difference to the people stuck with bad bosses.

Good Bosses Lead Employees to Increase Revenue: And, as many other studies have shown, there’s a strong correlation between employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and revenue. To take just one example, in the first of many such studies, published more than 15 years ago in the Harvard Business Review, Anthony Rucci, Steven Kirn, and Richard Quinn identified “the employee-customer-profit chain” at Sears. This was a straightforward dynamic in which employee behavior affected customer behavior, which in turn affected company financial performance. Specifically, in Sears’ case, when employee satisfaction improved by 5%, customer satisfaction improved by 1.3%, which led to a .05% improvement in revenue. That might not sound significant, but for $50 billion Sears, that that came to an extra $250 million in sales revenue.

This study has since been replicated by J.C. Penny, Best Buy, and Marriott. And for all of them the results held true — effective leaders led to satisfied employees, which led to satisfied customers, which led to a direct and measurable increase in sales revenue. Put all of these studies together, and to us the implications are clear. Being a better and friendlier boss helps.

Source: www.hbr.org

We meet all kinds of people in and outside the workplace. It is very difficult for us to predict how they would behave in various circumstances. We cannot control them, we can however control ourselves. It is very important for us to know how we should behave when we deal with difficult people.

Barbara is an assistant professor in biochemistry working in signal transduction. Six months ago, she had an idea about a way to use a green fluorescent protein (GFP)-SMAD construct to monitor changes in the intracellular location of a particular SMAD during cell signaling. She discussed the idea with Mohan, an assistant professor of physiology with experience using GFP constructs.

Later that year, Barbara sat in on a seminar about SMADs given by Astrid, a faculty member from another institution. Astrid discussed some preliminary work in which she used a SMAD-GFP construct in almost precisely the same way that Barbara had planned. Moreover, she indicated that this work was being done in collaboration with Mohan.

Barbara felt herself getting red in the face during the seminar. She believed that Mohan had stolen her idea and she was furious. At the end of the seminar, hardly able to contain her anger, she approached Mohan and pulled him aside. “I told you that I was planning to do almost exactly that experiment six months ago. Now I find that you did the same experiment with Astrid. This is infuriating and amounts to theft of my work.” During this recitation, Barbara became increasingly agitated and shouted loud enough for everyone leaving the seminar to hear, “How can you possibly justify what you did?”

Mohan was stunned and embarrassed. People were looking at the two of them. In desperation, he said, “Look, you’re way off base here. I never talked about your work. Why don’t you calm down? You have completely misunderstood this situation and now you are making a mountain out of a molehill.”

To Barbara, this felt like an attempt to brush her off and she became even more furious. “You’re an outright liar, Mohan, and I’m taking this to the committee on scientific misconduct,” she shouted. After hearing Barbara call him a liar, Mohan became furious and said, “Go ahead. You’re paranoid and everyone knows that.” In this case, we have the advantage of knowing that Barbara did in fact talk to Mohan about her idea. But we do not know whether Mohan knowingly misappropriated it or whether something else happened. Whatever the case, Mohan’s reaction simply fanned the flames of Barbara’s anger and resulted in her filing a formal charge of misconduct against him.

Mohan did everything wrong when confronted by Barbara. He denied her anger, or that she had any reason to be angry, by telling her to calm down. Telling an angry person to calm down is probably the least effective way to get them to do that. In fact, it is likely to increase their anger. Then Mohan told Barbara that what she is furious about is not a big deal. It was clearly a big deal to Barbara, and hearing Mohan deny that she had something to be angry about did not help. What could Mohan have done differently?

Let us rerun the scenario with a new and different Mohan. Mohan: “Barbara, I can see that you are really angry. I see how this looks to you, and I’d be angry too if I thought that someone did that to me. Frankly, it should have occurred to me how this would look, and I apologize for not speaking with you sooner. Can we go somewhere and talk about this? I’d really like to explain how this situation came about. The last thing I want is for our relationship to be damaged because of this.”

Principles used:

• Empathize: Mohan acknowledges Barbara’s anger and shows that he understands why she is angry.

• Agree: Mohan has agreed that Barbara has the right to be angry based on what she thinks happened. In doing this, Mohan has not agreed that he has done anything wrong. It’s important to note that telling Barbara that he can understand her anger is not the same as admitting that he did anything wrong. In fact, in this case, Mohan did not do anything wrong. But he needs to create a climate that enables him to explain this.

• Apologize: Next Mohan apologizes, not for doing anything wrong, but for failing to anticipate how Barbara would perceive the situation. Apologies work wonders with angry people, even if you are not apologizing for precisely what they are angry about. It shows Barbara that Mohan cares about her feelings and is willing to accept some responsibility.

• Inquire: Mohan tells Barbara that he would like to hear more about what she believes happened, further showing that he is interested in her perception.

• Assure: Finally, he assures her that it is important to him to maintain their relationship. All of this will allow Mohan to explain the situation from his perspective in a calm setting.

Source: Lab Dynamics (2nd edition), by Carl M. Cohen and Suzanne L. Cohen

Handling difficult people at work is one of the most challenging tasks that a manager faces from day to day. An organization cannot work well if there is a disturbing element that keeps distracting everyone else from their work. More and more of the manager’s time is spent on people issues rather than productivity if difficult people are not handled efficiently.

Over the course of a management career, you will deal with many employee challenges. One especially difficult challenge faced by Mike Sisco, founder and director of a top IT company in the US, makes an interesting “case study”. The employee in question was abusing others, both teammates and clients, and was not producing at a level expected for the position.

Mike’s approach has always been to deal with issues as they come up and deal with them as fairly and consistently as possible. The bottom line is that each individual on your team is expected to produce positive results and do so in a healthy way. Building a team that is highly responsive to client needs and successful in delivering value to your company requires everyone to make a positive contribution. Here is a brief description of how Mike handled the situation:

1. Mike coached the employee about the problems on two separate occasions and made it clear that he expected improvement. He was very specific and gave him examples of the unacceptable behavior. On the 2nd coaching session, he told him that if it happened again he would be put on a formal improvement plan and that if the issue occurred during the improvement plan time frame, he would be terminated.

2. The issue occurred again so Mike sat down with the employee and delivered a formal “work improvement” discussion. In this discussion, he gave the employee specific critique with examples that reinforced his concerns and handed him a written document stating the problem and specific resolution steps he must take to continue employment. Finally, the employee was notified directly that continued unacceptable performance that led to this discussion would result in dismissal.

3. In two weeks, Mike fired the employee because the performance improvements were not being met and another serious event demanded action.

The formal improvement session included the attendance of the senior Human Resources Manager because Mike wanted to be sure in this case that he covered all the bases since it was his belief the employee would simply “not get it”.

This was exactly the observation the HR Manager gave him after the session when he said, “You addressed all the issues well: what’s wrong, what you need to do to fix the problem, and clear understanding that continued poor performance would not be allowed. Even so, the employee doesn’t understand the problem; but you could not have explained the situation more clearly.”

In most situations, you won’t have to actually get to the point of firing an employee. Over 90% of the, when you address poor performance directly or conduct a “needs improvement” session with a poor performer, the employee does one of two things: he either improves the situation quickly or leaves on his own accord.

One of the most important responsibilities a manager has, is to do the right thing by your employees. That means stepping up to bad situations and taking appropriate action to improve performance of your organization. It is the right thing to do for your company, your clients and your staff.

More importantly, it’s the right thing to do for the poor performing employee. If you have an employee not performing, there are reasons as to why. Your job is to address the issue and to help each of your employees succeed, but there may be exceptions who just won’t make it. If so, your job is to help the employee move on to something that he can be successful in. To avoid this responsibility is unfair to the problem employee more than anyone. If you approach it in a light of “doing the right thing for the problem employee and your company”, it makes the tough work a little easier.

Source: www.itlever.com

Difficult people do exist at work. They come in every variety and no workplace is without them. They are often involved in various conflicts at the workplace (both major and minor). A good leader is someone who is capable of diffusing these conflicts and one who can lead all the people to work harmoniously with one another.

Annette Innella is the new senior VP for Knowledge Management at Concord Machines. She knows her proposal to establish a cross functional knowledge management committee is progressive thinking for this old-line manufacturer.

Bob Dunn is a senior and respected member of the organization. He is the general manager of the Services Group, which has in the time since he joined brought in half the revenue for the entire company. He’s just returned from a two week trip around the globe to gear up his troops to beat revenue targets again, despite shrinking budgets and hiring freezes. He has been handling a lot of assignments and has gathered up a huge workload with very little help from anyone else. He has also had a problem recently in his family wherein his son was arrested for drunk driving and possession of alcohol as a minor. All this has led to a lot of stress for him. And what does he see when he gets back? An email from Annette requesting that two of his best people devote half their time to what he calls her “idiotic” Knowledge Protocols Group. ‘He’s carrying the company on his back, and she’s throwing nonsense at him’, he feels.

Bob finally breaks down and as he sees Annette coming into the lunchroom with one of her high profile consultants, he starts screaming at her. He throws his lunch tray against the wall and stomps out, leaving Annette stunned.

Bob is a gruff and has a hot temper, but his staff loves him. He is one of the only big shots who ever sits down with the common staff and talks to them. The HR director however is incensed; Bob’s never been a team player, he complains, and it’s time he learned a lesson.

CEO Jay Nguyen is in a bind. Bob is his top manager; he brings in all the money. And even though future revenues are going to have to come from somewhere else, Jay is not totally behind Annette’s initiative in the current business climate. He can’t afford to lose Bob, who is the company’s highest revenue getter. He has been assigning more and more workload to Bob in order to meet the company’s profit margins. But if he reins in Annette, it will look like he’s condoning Bob’s outburst.

The big problem at this company is not Bob Dunn’s behavior; it’s Jay Nguyen’s. Jay has clearly been for some time busy with fundamental issues about the company and its future. But, equally clear, he has failed to share his thoughts and concerns with the rest of his top management team. No wonder Bob finally broke down, he’s been put in a untenable position. His CEO is pushing him to focus relentlessly on the near term even as other executives are being urged to look out toward the horizon.

So, while Jay deals with the immediate mess, he needs to do some deep-and fast-thinking about where he is taking the company and what he wants from each member of his executive team. And when he needs to meet the team and lay all his cards on the table. CEOs can’t have secret agendas.

As for the current situation, healing the wounds is going to take careful listening and straight talk. Jay needs to sit down with Annette Inella, apologize for his own miscommunication, and then let her speak her mind, no matter how long it takes. She needs to know that he empathizes with her and shares her shock and disappointment at Bob’s tantrum. But once she’s had her say, Jay needs to deliver a hard message.

Assuming that Annette knew about the financial pressures facing the company, her decision to suddenly launch an initiative that would distract the business unit was unconscionable. It may also have been that Annette, who is rather new in the corporate world, may be the wrong person for the job at hand. If Jay truly has serious doubts about her capabilities, as he seems to, he is going to have to bite the bullet and guide her toward a decision to be reassigned or to leave the company. It may be possible to have a B-list person manage an effort that is already up and running, but when it comes to spearheading a new, critical initiative, you need nothing less than top tier talent. Jay may need to cut his losses with Annette.

As for Bob, Jay needs to reinforce the message that what he did was a big mistake and that he needs to apologize to Annette- in person. More important, though, Jay needs to tell Bob how valuable he is to the company. Bob is too important to be allowed to feel alienated by this incident- or even to be distracted by it. And then Jay needs to change Bob’s marching orders. He needs Bob to delegate day-to-day decisions and firefights to his lieutenants; Bob cannot, and should not, continue to do everything himself. Moreover he should be given some time off to deal with the personal issues he is facing at home.

Perseverance is not giving up. It is persistence and tenacity, the effort required to do something and keep doing it till the end, even if it’s hard. Perseverance originally comes from the Latin perseverantia and means to abide by something strictly. This makes sense, because if you’re doing something in spite of all the difficulty, you’re being strict on yourself. Sailing around the world and climbing Mt. Everest are acts requiring perseverance. Even things like learning a new language require perseverance and daily practice.

Prem Ganapathy was stranded at the Bandra station when the person accompanying him left him and ran away. Prem had no local acquaintances or knowledge of the language. Out of pity, a fellow Tamilian guided him to a temple and appealed worshipers to contribute money for his return ticket to Chennai.

Prem refused to go back and decided to work in Mumbai and started cleaning utensils in a restaurant. He appealed to his owner to let him become a waiter as he was class 10 pass. The owner refused, because of regional politics and Prem bided his time till a neighborhood dosa restaurant opened and offered him a job from a dishwasher to a tea boy.

Prem became a huge hit with the customers because of his excellent customer service, initiatives and relationship and brought business Rs. 1000 daily which was almost 3 times as compared to other tea boys. Life was good.

A customer made him an offer. He was planning to open a tea shop in Vashi in Mumbai. He wanted Prem to be his 50 – 50 partner where the owner would invest the money while Prem would run the shop. The shop started doing brisk business when the owner became greedy. It hurt him to share 50 % of the profit with Prem and he threw Prem out replacing him with an employee.

Prem was made of a different material and he was never going to be defeated. He took a small loan from his uncle and with his brother, opened his own tea stall. Unfortunately the neighborhood residents objected. He then started a hand cart but that also did not work out. He found a spot and set up a south Indian stall. He did not know a thing about dosas and idli but learnt by observation, trial and error. The dosa stall was a huge hit and flourished during the 5 years from 1992-1997.

He saved a couple of lakhs of Rupees and instead of heading home he took the biggest risk of his life and opened a new shop near Vashi station and named it as Dosa Plaza. His Chinese plaza next to the Dosa Plaza flopped miserably and was shut down in 3 months. Undaunted, Prem realized some lessons from it. He applied those lessons in making Chinese cuisine in his dosas which worked very well.

He got passionate and invented a variety of dosas with Chinese style like American Chopsuey, Schezwan Dosa, Paneer chilly, Spring roll dosa etc. The 108 types of Dosas in his menu gets him a lot of publicity. A chance encounter with a customer who was part of the team setting up a food court in a mall in New Bombay advised him to take a stall at the food court and again Prem was ready and willing to grow and expand. His vision was to grow by better offerings and better customer service. He also went to ad agencies to create the brand identity including the logo, brands, menu card, waiters dress etc.

He started getting a lot of offers for franchising and had to find out the meaning of franchising and its modus operandi. Dosa Plaza currently has 26 outlets and 5 of them are company owned. It has 150 employees and a turnover of 5 crore.