2009 June Archive at DrivenLeaders.com

Monthly Archive for June, 2009

The Foundation of Management - Free eBook!

Published

on June 28, 2009

. 1 Comment

No One is Born Knowing How to Manage

There was a time when the term “manager” suggested someone who controlled. Today the manager must facilitate. In the past, the manager kept people in line. Today the manager must lift people up. In our rapidly changing world the manager’s most vital role is to make sure every employee is performing at the highest possible level. And today, how well you perform this vital role determines your success.

“Today’s manager must emphasize vision, not supervision.” - Jack Welch

Jack Hayhow is back at it again, this time with his latest installment entitled The Foundation of Management. Since interviewing Jack back in February, I’ve followed much of his work both imprint and video briefs. His book, The Wisdom of the Flying Pig, has become a staple in guidance and inspiration for aspiring leaders.

In this most recent eBook, Jack explains fundamental principles and practical techniques that great managers use to propel employee performance.

Key topics include:

The Role of the Manager
What Great Managers Know About Motivation
The Four Key Activities of All Great Managers
1. How to Communicate Explicit Expectations
2. How to Provide the Information and Resources to Do the Job Right
3. How to Measure, Recognize and Celebrate
4. How to Show You Care by Encouraging Growth

Once again, Jack and his team at Opus have been generous enough to offer a free copy of this eBook for those looking to expand their management skill set. foundationebook1 The Foundation of Management Free eBook!

To download your free copy:
1. Click this eBook order page.
2. Enter coupon: JH-FOUNDATION
3. Click the “redeem coupon” button.
4. Fill out the fields and download your free eBook.

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Related articles by Zemanta

How Much Recognition Do Employees Need? (drivenleaders.com)
Boosting Employee Engagement and Productivity (drivenleaders.com)
How to Build a Successful Team (drivenleaders.com)

Is Your Business Leveraging the Power of Social Media?

Published

Anthony Portuesi

on June 25, 2009

in Technology and Thought Provoking

. 3 Comments

Social media has been the hot topic for some time now, seemingly expanding its reach each and every day in various capacities. For marketers, these social platforms have already been marketing game changers, providing endless opportunities for connecting with consumers in deeper and more meaningful ways.

Social networking sites (“Member Community” sites) eclipsed E-mail in global reach at 68.4% vs. 64.8% in February 2009. And even more significant, in only the first few months of 2009, the reach of these sites is growing at a brisk pace, faster than any other online sector. – The Nielson Company

From a global perspective, it’s interesting to note how quickly this phenomenon is continues to expand. The graph below, from Nielsen’s Global Online Media Landscape shows the growth from 07′-08′ on a country-by-country basis. Significant growth in a one year period.

Statistics such as these make it hard to deny the rapid growth and raw power that social media commands. Nevertheless, many organizations have been less than speedy with their entry into this digital environment. Some with good reason as it may not fit their organizations objectives, yet others hold out simply due to lack of understanding and fear of the unknown. The thought of navigating the social landscape can be a challenging task, especially for beginners uneasy about getting their feet wet.

Regardless of reason, that fact remains that there are many companies simply sitting on the sidelines, missing a prime opportunity to establish direct relationships with their customers and the possibility of transforming this “two-way communication” into increased sales.

While I don’t claim to be an expert in this area, my pure fascination of the digital marketing revolution fuels my desire to stay abreast of the changing dynamics. If you or your organization is one of the many sitting on the sidelines, I’ll challenge you to take the first step and educate yourself on social media and the possibilities it brings to the table. Introspectively evaluate your current marketing efforts and decide if this is a field you should be playing on. It may or may not be, but the one truth is that sitting on the sidelines waiting and wondering is no longer a viable option.

Where to start…

If you haven’t already done so, finding solid website hosting and creating a content rich home base is your first task. Taking it to the next level, 360i has developed a Social Marketing Playbook, designed to help marketers evaluate the social marketing opportunities available, determine which ones are best for their brands and develop a strategy following best practices for achieving success in social media.

The goals of the Playbook are to:

Provide a framework for establishing a set of clear objectives and strategy when approaching social marketing
Encourage thinking of social marketing as an opportunity to have a continuous, valuable exchange with customers
Advance discussions on amplifying marketing results through the integration of social marketing and offline campaigns

It’s an excellent read that will provide a foundation for the concepts and terminology you’ll need to understand. Download it here.

Secondly, I recommend following a few cutting edge digital marketers. With the landscape in a continual state of flux, they provide a fresh perspective on how to keep your company’s strategy current and relevant. While there are many excellent bloggers that I follow, I’ll keep the list short for the purposes of this post. A few that I recommend (in no particular order):

Dave Knox (hardknoxlife.com) -Dave is a CPG Brand Manager and true Marketing Technopologist. In may, Ad Age named Dave as one of their “25 Media People to Follow on Twitter.” As personal friend for quite some time, I can tell you first hand he will stretch your views on the mix of marketing and technology. (@daveknox)
Pete Blackshaw (consumergeneratedmedia.com) - Pete coined the term “consumer- generated media” (CGM) and authors a blog by that same name. He is an accomplished author, most recently publishing “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000.” Pete perspective in helping companies promote and protect their brands online is well worth following. (@pblackshaw)
Jeremiah Owyang (www.web-strategist.com/blog/) - Jeremiah is a big dog when it comes to web strategy. The focus of his blog is to discuss how web tools enable companies to connect with customers. An excellent place to start is with his analytical posts tagged Web Strategy. (@jowyang)

Feel free to comment on any additional resources that you have found helpful.

10 Tips on How to be Taken Seriously as a Leader

Published

Anthony Portuesi

on June 21, 2009

in Gen-Y and Leadership

. 4 Comments

gen y respect 10 Tips on How to be Taken Seriously as a Leader Earning credibility and being taken seriously continue to be challenging issues for many Gen-Y employees as they step into roles of increasing responsibly.

In preparation for advancement, many training programs focus solely on building “competencies,” the cornerstones to success. I agree the ability to negotiate, communicate, influence, and persuade others are indispensable qualities when it comes to leading successful teams. And there is no doubt that enhancing these skills builds one’s credibility and sets the groundwork for long-term success. However, for Gen-Y Leaders, the risk of undermining that credibility early on is very real thing. Many sabotage themselves, losing control and credibility before they even have the opportunity to utilize there abilities, simply by falling into classic traps that are easily overlooked.

Highlighting this point, authors Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio, offer some basic and practical suggestions that lay the foundation for being taken seriously when moving into the role of team leader. The following ten steps can be found with greater detail in their book, The Girl’s Guide To Starting Your Own Business.

1. Be on time every day. It’s your business. Lead by example.

2. Don’t make a habit of leaving early. Your employees will resent you if you walk out the door at three and call them from the gym at five-thirty to check in.

3. Don’t go drinking with your assistant. Or swap stories. You need to set the example. What you do in your private time away from the office should remain fodder for your peers, not your subordinates.

4. Don’t ask them to do anything that is not work-related. It’s rude and fosters resentment. This includes walking your dog, picking up your dry cleaning, and buying your personal holiday presents, unless, of course, the job is personal assistant.

5. Don’t let them hear you on personal calls. Not only will they will imitate you for months if they hear you refer to your spouse with pet names, they will feel entitled to be on their own calls all day.

6. You are not their friend. Be a pleasant boss, but never leave the door open to talk about personal drama. You want your employees to feel comfortable talking to you about serious personal problems (especially if they will impact her job performance) - a sick mother or child-care problem, for example. But the last thing you can afford is to become a surrogate therapist for employee dating or marital woes.

7. Pitch in when you can. If you have assigned what you know to be a tedious task, such as mailing five hundred company brochures, spend at least a few minutes pitching in. This is your team; make it happen together. A little willingness to get your hands dirty will go a long way when you need a really big ditch dug.

8. Do not share company financial issues or problems. If your employees suspect things are not going well, they will be looking for another job before you know it. There is a whole philosophy of open-book management that works in big public companies (the law requires it, anyway), but in small companies you don’t need your employees second-guessing your decisions.

9. If something goes wrong with a client or customer, you have to take the blame. As the boss, you are responsible for everything running smoothly. If you have a problem employee, you need to monitor him or her closely, provide more training, or let her go. You cannot make bad employees the scapegoats for mistakes.

10. Manage, but don’t smother. Granted this is your business and you’ve got the most to lose, but you’ve got to let your employees take responsibility for their workload. Guide, cajole, pester — don’t suffocate.

What other suggestions would you offer from your experience?

How to Earn Respect Quickly Despite your Youth (drivenleaders.com)
How to work better with Gen Y (money.cnn.com)

The Leader’s Lifelong Learner’s Permit

Published

Anthony Portuesi

on June 8, 2009

in Leadership and Thought Provoking

. 2 Comments

learnerspermit The Leaders Lifelong Learners Permit

This past week I connected with Sangeeth Varghese, founder of LeadCap, a leadership organization building future leaders in India, and the author of Decide to Lead. Sangeeth and I both subscribe to the belief that in a world of continuous change, one the most valuable skills is the ability to learn. Below are some of his thought provoking comments recently published on Forbes.com, pertaining to leadership and being a lifelong student.

You should be educating yourself at every moment.

Learning is like the weather. Everybody talks about it, but nobody does much about it. True leaders, though, can never be switched off to learning opportunities. As John F. Kennedy wrote in a speech he was to give the day he was assassinated, “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”
True leaders are beings who go around with a permanent learner’s permit. They use their minds to learn from even the most mundane things in life, and thereby they grow unceasingly. There are three broad ways in which they keep learning and growing.

First, leaders learn constantly. They actively strive to learn at every moment. They view taking a break as a chance to chew on information newly acquired, and to create an ideal state for imbibing more new information. Perhaps the best story of constant learning is that of Friedrich August Kekulé, who learned even in his sleep. He was struggling to decipher the structure of the benzene molecule, and it is said that one night he dreamed of a snake forming a ring by biting its own tail. Inspired by this, and prepared by all the research he had done, he saw how the benzene molecule could be in the form of a ring. He was correct. His discovery was a leap for organic chemistry.

Second, leaders learn continuously. That is, when they’re really at it they brook no distraction. Research has shown that it is more efficacious to study for one hour straight than for two hours with interruption. Interruptions break our train of thought and limit our ability to retain information. They take the power out of learning. Sherlock Holmes, the fictional detective, attributed much of his success to his remarkable ability to detach his mind at will to focus on the problem at hand. Would-be leaders can learn a lesson from that idealized, imaginary detective.

Third, leaders learn cyclically. They understand that life is never one-dimensional. It must be studied from every side and turned upside down. They learn by repetition and repeated review. Whatever subject they choose, they always find more to learn. When they move to new areas of knowledge, they stay alert to picking up knowledge pertinent to previous topics. This builds deeper understanding. sangeethvarghese The Leaders Lifelong Learners Permit

Leadership takeaway: Leaders never let their minds shut down. Whatever you are doing at any given moment–watching the news, working on a business deal, talking to a friend, reading this article–give it your full attention, and keep on learning.

Stepping Up in the Absence of Leadership (drivenleaders.com)
5 Attributes of Inspirational Leaders (drivenleaders.com)

Free Webinar: How to Use Facebook for Business

Published

Anthony Portuesi

on June 1, 2009

in Entrepreneurship and Technology

. 2 Comments

It’s a fact. The Facebook phenomenon isn’t slowing down (at least anytime in the foreseeable future), as the site continues to hold its ground as one of the fastest growing websites year after year. According to Alexa.com (as of May 2009), Facebook is ranked number 4 for traffic on the internet, with users spending over 25 minutes on the site viewing the 13,000+ applications as they connect to friends, family and business associates.

With numbers like that, it’s easy to understand why more and more businesses are leveraging the power of Facebook to connect with their customers. According to a study released earlier this year, by interactive marketing agency Rosetta;

59% of 100 top retailers are now using Facebook.

With this number surely on the rise, it may be time to embrace the Facebook opportunity or risk being left behind.

“These results support what we’re seeing in our day-to-day client work, which is that we’ve reached a tipping point with Facebook among retailers,” says Adam Cohen, partner with Rosetta’s consumer goods and retail practice. “Social media sites continue to be an important source of community connection, and savvy retailers are reaping the benefits of Facebook’s rapid extension into new demographics, such as Gen-X and seniors.”

Yet amongst the excitement, Cohen cautions retailers in the study’s press release. He advises against a haphazard approach to the medium.

“It’s important that retailers don’t just slap up a page because everyone is talking about Facebook. An effective Facebook presence requires that you carefully consider what your customers are looking for, what you would like to communicate, and what role a fan page should play in your overall online strategy. If you take all of these into account, it can be effective in building customer loyalty. ”

To learn more about how to effectively use Facebook to further your business, Search Engine Strategies is offering a free webinar entitled “How to Use Facebook for Business” this Wednesday, June 3, 2009 at 2:00 PM EDT/11:00 AM PDT. It should be an interesting presentation that I’ll unfortuantly be unable to attend. If you’re able to catch it, please leave a comment below. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the discussion. Details are below.

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How to Use Facebook for Business

Date: Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Time: 2:00 PM EDT/11:00 AM PDT
Cost: Free! But you must register beforehand.

Welcome to a world of conversations and relationships. Facebook is not an evil time-waster, a community just for college students, or something scary or irrelevant for marketers – even you B2B folks. Facebook is a tool for connecting people with those around them. And, as with any social media tool, marketers have an opportunity to use Facebook to expand their online footprint and engage with customers directly. Join this free webinar to learn how to get started using Facebook to market your business. Presenters - Ellie Mirman, Inbound Marketing Manager, Hubspot & Mike Volpe, VP of Inbound Marketing, Hubspot

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