action Archives - Dennis E. Gilbert

28
Apr 21
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Sharing Confidence Is a Workplace Dream

Tags : action confidence planning psychology of work strategy

Or is it a reality? Sharing confidence may actually be your competitive advantage. Are you seizing that opportunity?

What you focus on is what you get. If you don’t have focus, you are focusing on nothing. What will you get? Nothing.

Spend your energy on rumors and gossip, and you’ll have more. Spend it on production, efficiency, and providing stellar services, and you’ll be making better strides.

Does confidence play a role on what you get next?

Doubts or Confidence?

When you launch the new marketing campaign, some people will have doubts.

Build something new for the customer and some people may wonder if it will hold up under pressure or last long enough to be a great value.

Someone might suggest that it can’t be done. The change is too big, too wide, and not focused enough. Someone may suggest it is ridiculous.

Savvy organizations pursue it with passion. They set up metrics, measurements, and plot it all on a timeline with specific milestones. Do they get the work done? Have they accomplished the task? Is the strategy appropriate and are the tactics effective?

The hard part really isn’t in the planning. The plan is just that, a plan. A plan brings things to life. Brick by brick or drop by drop. The build occurs or the bucket fills.

What is the hard part?

The hard part is often inspiring the confidence to get started.

Sharing Confidence

Dreaming is pretty easy, at least when compared with fulfilling the dream.

Confidence is a competitive advantage. Less time is wasted on doubts and fears and more time spent on bringing the plan to fruition.

A lack of confidence stalls projects. It may even cause them to stop, or worse, never get started.

Organizations that build confidence within the employee teams have an advantage.

While everyone else is doing the easy part, teams with confidence are focused.

Don’t waste time sharing things that are project stoppers.

Do the hard part.

Illustrate confidence and then share it.

Dreams do become reality.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

11
Dec 19
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Energized Action and Learning Something New

Tags : action change frame growth learning

It isn’t always about what we know. Often it is more about what we do with what we know. Do you have energized action?

We hear about it before the meeting, the workshop, or the conference breakout session.

I’m not attending because I already know that stuff.

That’s about as basic as it comes, I’m going to a different session.

These meetings are so boring, we always talk about the same stuff.

There is a difference between knowing and action. How you react to opportunities will often depend on how you look at them.

Open to Opportunity

Many people stop listening, often before they even start listening.

There are the stereotypes, biases, and the “set ways” that often keep people from learning more.

Our mindset and how we approach opportunities with differences depends on what happens next. What happens next is your action.

A coffee shop owner may have different business experience from the clock shop owner. One business author writes about finance, the other about marketing. The YouTuber gets a million hits from the skateboard event, another from an artistic display of human generosity.

Energized Action

When we block out new or different information, we set limits. We shelter and close the frame on our design. Having a frame can help us digest new or large volumes of information but never adjusting the frame will limit future outcomes.

Energized action comes from the willingness to adjust the frame. It comes from exploration, risk, and a propensity to see opportunity in differences.

You may feel like you already know it all. You may feel that you’ve mastered the craft. Yet, you may be surprised how things look through a different lens.

You want your next opportunity? You want energized action?

Give opportunity a chance.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

01
Nov 19
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Stories Create Action When Action is Missing

Tags : action change strategic plan workplace stories

“Once upon a time,” is a memory from childhood. It is how the child in you expects to open your mind for something really good. As adults we may discover, “Imagine if,” is just as powerful. Do your stories create action?

Stuck or stalled organizations want action and often the only way to get more action or new action is to change something.

Consultants and coaches often ask, “What are you going to change?” The answer is often difficult.

It is hard to imagine today. The first McDonald’s drive through happened in 1975. Perhaps there was a pay phone nearby. Something that is extremely scarce or non-existent today.

NASA technology has changed many things in our lives. So has the work of a few clever people such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos. What stories did they tell?

Stories Create Action

When a business creates a strategic plan it creates the opportunity for the story. The best plans have a clever and direct mission, vision, and objectives. They are right there, on paper or digital, available to read, understand, and deploy.

Yet every business plan doesn’t create billionaires. Every business plan doesn’t result in success.

Our lives change through stories. Organizations grow, develop, and change based upon a story. The story is a vision told and repeated. A successful story is believed.

When you want real change in your organization it may include a strategic plan, yet a plan without a story doesn’t create much action.

Tell a story that resonates and you’ll get action.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

14
May 18
-

Planning Meeting, Will It Cause Action?

Tags : action effectiveness management meeting motivation

A new idea seems to come out of nowhere. The competition launches a new advertising campaign, or sales are not reaching the goal. Do you have a planning meeting to discuss the next steps? Will your next meeting result in action?

Planning Meeting

Planning meetings, strategy sessions, or meetings for general updates, are any of these meetings effective? The best answer is probably, “Sometimes.”

There is value to talk. While we know that talk is cheap and it is much easier to say something as compared with actually doing it, there is still value.

Properly structured positive affirmation discussions can be inspirational and help to improve confidence. Both are often needed for high performance. Similar to the coaches talk before the big game, or the friendly, “You’ve got this!” before your big presentation, talk matters.

When you have a planning meeting to discuss what happens next, it may create the atmosphere that causes action. When teams fail to say it, it often fails to get done. So talk about it, and talk about it often.

Open Discussion

Are there items that should be said but are not discussed? Once again, the answer is probably, “Sometimes.” However, that may be a nice way of saying, “Often.”

During the planning meeting, it may be what is not being said that has relevance for high performance. Fear often prevents people from mentioning the forgotten item, the one that no one wants to do, or the new obstacle that popped up last week.

Looking for a software solution to help manage your meeting? (BlueSky)

Goals that you expect to come to fruition require some discussion. They may require updates, the keep it on track analysis, and inspiration to leap beyond the rough spots. Instead, these areas are often silenced because of the fear of being the messenger.

Planning meetings are not a waste of time when the discussion sparks positive action.

It’s the huddle before the next play of the game.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a five-time author and some of his work includes, #CustServ The Customer Service Culture, and Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

27
Apr 18
2

Leadership Habit 47: Never Coast

Tags : action coasting habits leadership

Good things happen to good people. At least, that is what we often hear. When things are already going good there often really isn’t any need to do anything different, right? Cruising, coasting, or joy riding may be a bad metaphorical position for any leader. Good leaders never coast.

When the marketing plan appears to be working, when sales are flowing and the funnel is big, and when all of teams are working together and the product or service is ready to ship, don’t coast. Coasting is one of the easiest traps for any leader to fall into.

Coasting Problems

Here are a few problems for the leader that coasts:

False security, no reason for action
Stops learning because of the feeling that all necessary knowledge has been attained
Listen to the bottom line, not customers
Opportunities go unrecognized since they aren’t needed
Systems age or don’t keep up leaving a technology gap

Coasting feels good. It is the confirmation bias of those that follow the idea of good things happen to good people. One problem with that thinking is that most business success, at least that which will continue to grow, doesn’t just happen.

Never Coast

Consider some changes for the trouble spots just mentioned.

Action is always important. No plan, or a plan without action is a plan to fail. Sooner or later.
Becoming smarter is magnetic. It typically creates more business. Besides, learning is a lot more fun than boredom.
Nothing will give you a better clue for where you’re headed than honest conversations with customers.
You can’t feed a family (for long) on last year’s crop. There is no room for the sustain mindset, new opportunities are always needed.
Prepare to change often, new technology leads the way, nothing has advanced in the last century without new technology.

Anyone can coast for a while. Sometimes the coast is long and steady, but eventually the coast will slow to a stop. In some circumstances, you eventually may start to coast backwards.

Never coast, it may feel affordable, but the true cost is always too high.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a five-time author and some of his work includes, #CustServ The Customer Service Culture, and Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

15
Nov 16
-

3 Tips for Translating Vision Into Action

Tags : action goals persistence transition vision

Converting vision into action is often a workplace trouble spot. People can’t always see or clearly understand how they will accomplish their goals or do their part for bringing the vision of the organization to fruition.

While it might sound absurd on the surface, think about the last time you said or heard, “I don’t even know where to get started.” Sometimes it is difficult to get started when the task in front of you looks too big or too lofty to complete.

People might look at their desk, open a closet door or peak into their favorite storage space and think that cleaning it up or organizing the mess is just too difficult. Procrastination is at least one of the trouble spots for getting more organized or translating vision into action, but there are plenty of others.

What about you, can you translate vision into action?

Workplace Vision to Action

When your boss, the CEO, or even the board of directions sets performance goals sometimes the hardest part is getting started. Sometimes when you consider the forecasts they seem to be based on lofty aspirations, stretch goals, or to be coming from the place where unicorns live. If you don’t know where to begin, you’re not alone. Here are a few tips that might help:

Break goals into smaller pieces. If you are looking at an annual budget you can begin by breaking things down into quarters, months, or even weeks. Keep in mind that in many cases results are not achieved in a perfect linear fashion. There might be peaks as well as valleys, and some cyclical nature to achieving results. Sometimes smaller pieces will help you to identify your initial focus.
Jump in and get started. When it feels like you don’t know where to start, and you just can’t seem to figure it all out, try to focus on just jumping in, launch into it. Do something, move something, change something, take some kind of action. Sometimes once you are in motion some of the pieces will start to come together. Quite simply, you can’t finish if you never start.
Focus on wins. One of the best motivators for what to do next is to remember your successes or past accomplishments. Identify and always reflect on something that was successful no matter how small it may seem. Sometimes making the decision to get started might represent your first win. Collect all of your wins together, pile them up, look at them, think about what would have happened without these and focus on achieving more.

Translating vision into action typically doesn’t require you to find the unicorn. It does sometimes require focus, persistence, and tenacity. It might be easy to claim that the goal is too big, has never been achieved before, or cannot be accomplished with current resources but those all sound like excuses to me. If you’re really going to make something happen, you’re going to have to recognize that excuses are useless.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and coach that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a four-time author. Some of his work includes, Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce and Pivot and Accelerate, The Next Move Is Yours! Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

Tag Archives: action

Apr 21

-

Doubts or Confidence?

Sharing Confidence

Dec 19

-

Open to Opportunity

Energized Action

Nov 19

-

Stories Create Action

May 18

-

Planning Meeting

Open Discussion

Apr 18

Coasting Problems

Never Coast

Nov 16

-

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