good Archives - Dennis E. Gilbert

12
Aug 20
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Bad Decisions, How Will You Support Them?

Tags : bad decisions ethical good leadership

Empowered people make decisions. In the workplace, sometimes bad decisions are all that you have to work with. What should you do?

Leadership often has an interesting way of unfolding.

It’s common that employees at lower levels of the organization are faced with enduring the outcomes of poor decisions.

It’s about leadership, at all levels.

In many workplace scenarios, decisions are made by executive leaders and the middle managers are stuck with rolling out the new direction. When most agree with the direction, things can go well. Of course, the opposite is also true too.

If you are faced with supporting a decision you don’t agree with, what should you do?

Leadership has responsibility. Leadership comes from all organizational levels.

You should lead.

Navigating Bad Decisions

Some decisions are deal-breakers. Ethically challenged decisions or legally challenged decisions, those need to be weighed differently.

In most cases, your concerns over decisions or choices should be voiced. They should be voiced constructively and tactfully with those involved.

Once that opportunity, if it exists, is over, then your support will be required.

As an individual you should consider two high-road choices.

First, you can appropriately support a decision that you lack some agreement with and seek out the best possible results. Conduct business constructively and with a supportive attitude.

The second option isn’t as easy. If it is a major change and you completely believe this is the beginning of the end, you may have to make it the end by removing yourself.

Fighting what you feel is a bad decision with poor behavior and compromising team efforts, organizational culture, and lowering morale are destructive. Perhaps more destructive than the bad decision.

Great leaders at all levels navigate these scenarios tactfully and constructively.

Everyone wants middle ground on these two roads. Sometimes there are shades of grey. In other cases, it is straight forward, black and white, no grey.

The road you choose is a decision.

Make it a good one.

Two bad’s don’t make a good.

-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.

25
Apr 19
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Will Compelling Ideas Cause a Shift?

Tags : bad compelling good ideas leadership

There are lots of ideas floating around. Easily, more ideas than there is action. The hesitation, fear, and lack of action doesn’t help new ideas grow. Are you delivering compelling ideas? Ideas that are sticky and gain momentum?

Jump on The Box

For some people it is easy to get on the soap box. Hold up a cue card (metaphorically) and someone will jump on their box.

Once on the box, listeners sense the urgency, passion, and may be compelled to jump on board with the idea. They may also find disagreement and want to argue.

The challenge then for the soap box stander is to not only be compelling but also to be charismatic. It is similar to an election. Candidates get on the box. It is the stump speech.

How does this apply in the workplace?

It happens every day. Someone has a chance or the opportunity to get on the box. The messages that we exchange and engage with in the workplace are often followed by action and belief, or not.

Recently, at a speaking engagement someone asked me, “How do you teach up the ladder, get executives involved, and gain buy-in?” I thought the answer was easy, I responded with, “You have to be compelling.”

Compelling Ideas

I love the opportunity to get on the box. Sometimes I have to reel myself back in before I take things too far. Change is often about small doses of a good idea, spread across time. The big picture is just too much, too soon.

Like the closet that needs cleaning, it is easier to do in pieces. When we open the door and see so much clutter, we just don’t know where to start. So, we do nothing except close the door again.

The shift that you want to make may be a good idea. You’ll have to be compelling and maybe a little charismatic. Use the right speed and quantity.

Too much, too soon, and you may end up with the perception that it is a bad idea. Door closed.

-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.

21
Jun 18
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Strategy Session Starts With Bad Ideas?

Tags : bad change good ideas strategy

In the strategy session you recognize your job is to bring forward new good ideas. It’s emphasized that no idea is a bad idea. The rules state that you should leave your ego and judgement at the door. Does this work?

Creating a new strategy or deciding on the next big move has many potential roadblocks and hurdles. Mostly because many of the frequent contributors have already decided. They have a fixed opinion on the path.

Perhaps the rules should be different?

Roadblocks and Hurdles

If ego, self-deception, and judgement are problematic maybe the group shouldn’t be charged first with coming up with new good ideas. Instead maybe they should start a list of bad ideas.

Get all the stuff that won’t work on the flip chart. Everything that has been tried before but failed. Everything that you know won’t work. Go to the trenches, dig deep, get it all on the chart.

Is this negativity? Certainly, it could be, but bad ideas don’t necessarily mean negativity.

Strategy Session

What if you do what you’ve always done? Just go through the normal routine. The leaders give the rules, the leaders break the rules. New ideas aren’t generated and persuasion for a personal agenda is evident.

The session concludes with nods of agreement and everyone goes back to work. Except, the next day at the water cooler everyone is talking about all the really bad ideas you’re going to pursue next.

Perhaps the best way to get ego out of the way and get to a list of truly new good ideas is to start with a list of bad ideas first.

Crazy? Maybe. If you think it’s crazy let’s just go back to checking egos at the door.

One path is a waste of time, the other, constructive.

-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+

26
Jan 18
-

Good Service Done Right, Can You Find It?

Tags : customer good quality sales service

It seems that there are universal truths about many things in life. Are there universal truths about customer service? Can we still get good service done right?

Many believe that it is a very interesting time for small businesses, franchise holders, and non-profit organizations. Likely, there are no limits on size, shape, or even sector. It could be your small town dentist office, a large-scale telecommunications provider, or the 1940’s railcar dinner.

Today, as frustrations mount with poor service, the desire for good service increases. Repetitive breakdowns cause people to seek something better. Rejection may lead to obsession, and stories of poor service lead to a new quest to find the exceptions.

Universal Truths

What are some of the universal truths about good service? What are organizations doing to deliver?

They are:

Timely
Responsive
Caring
Kind
Honest
Trustworthy
Valued
Considerate
Forthcoming
Well-managed
Respected
Active
Participative
Decisive
Resourceful

Perhaps this represents just a handful of the qualities that make things go more right, instead of wrong.

Wrong Things First

It is easy for organizations to focus on the wrong things first. By choice, they often focus on self-protection, cheapest to spec and good enough to close the sale.

These choices often become values and traditions. The traditions the organization holds on the inside. Their dirty laundry and the things they stuff in the closet.

They aren’t broadcast or made public, at least not in the written form. Customers quickly figure it out though, and they are just as quick to tell others or jump to a social media channel to spread the word.

Unfortunately, it is the evolution, the life cycle and a self-created destiny.

Good Service

For the organization that wants to change, the one that wants to grow its base, build a new reputation, and deliver good service, it often becomes about a process of unlearning.

Unlearning the bad habits, unlearning the self-protection factors that restrict quality and removing of the mindset of building or delivering to the cheapest spec wins.

Why is all of this important? It is important because there is a difference between done and done right.

– 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+

12
May 15
-

Change Anything

Tags : change good pivot

Nearly everyone likes something a little bit extra. We like more fun, maybe a few more sweet treats, or even a little more time off from a busy schedule. Most people, who find something they like, want more.

The secret to a little bit extra isn’t always more. Sometimes it is about the value we place on it. We like it when the wait staff at our favorite restaurant call us by name, give us our favorite table, and have our favorite beverage on the way before we are seated. It makes us feel good, extra good. It changes things.

Extra good is something we value, something we cherish, or sometimes something that we shouldn’t have, but we want it anyway. It makes me wonder, what else can hard working, high energy, forward thinking people create that is extra good? Something that says here it is, and it is made special, just for you.

Would that change anything?

I think so.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a keynote speaker, corporate trainer, and consultant that specializes in helping businesses accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. Reach him through his website at http://DennisEGilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

Photo Credit: Jessica Diamond (on Flickr)

Tag Archives: good

Aug 20

-

Bad Decisions, How Will You Support Them?

Navigating Bad Decisions

Apr 19

-

Will Compelling Ideas Cause a Shift?

Jump on The Box

Compelling Ideas

Jun 18

-

Strategy Session Starts With Bad Ideas?

Roadblocks and Hurdles

Strategy Session

Jan 18

-

Good Service Done Right, Can You Find It?

Universal Truths

Wrong Things First

Good Service

May 15

-

Change Anything

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