Tag Archives: growth

  • 16
    Oct 18
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self-reflection

Self-Reflection May Be Your Stumbling Block

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Assessment is one of the most fundamental ways we seek to understand gaps. It is important for the speaker at the conference, the trainer helping to develop the team, and the coach who helps you change. Self-reflection, a form of assessment, may also be your biggest stumbling block.

Social Anxieties

Do you enjoy browsing on social networks? Why does it interest you? Do you engage, or quietly observe? Do you stalk, secretly looking to see what others are doing?

What do you find attractive about shopping? Whether it is online or in a brick and mortar store?

What are some of your favorite movies? What television series attracts your attention?

Why does the song or music resonate with you? What makes you feel it, helps you escape, or excites your emotions?

The answer to nearly all these questions has something to do with you. Individuals are striving to understand, feel, or compare. Their vision, thoughts, and feelings are a vicarious trip to the future, or an opportunity to relive the past.

When we look at the old yearbook photo, we seek first to find our own reflection. What were we wearing, how did we look? Too skinny, too fat, or why did we choose those clothes?

Why do so many selfies get adjusted? Add some dog ears, and a cute little nose.

All of this is not about everyone. It is however about someone. It is about you.

Self-Reflection

Self-reflection will always condition what happens next. It will condition your choice to spring into action or to fall back, hide, or regroup.

People are attracted to social networks because they are finding themselves. They may seek to find sympathy, regret, or someone to share in their sorrow. Maybe things aren’t that bad, or maybe they want appreciation for being the victim.

Other times they seek the energy, the excitement, the happiness, and the possibilities. They relive the best and think fondly of the past.

One truth about self-reflection, it is the thought we have right before what we become next.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and corporate trainer. 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.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

  • 30
    May 18
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training priorities

Move Up, Move Down, Training Priorities

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A fundamental goal of nearly every business is to make money. Even non-profit organizations need revenue streams and outcomes associated with delivery. Do you have time for training? What are your training priorities?

The excuse that is hard to argue is the one that positions against the fundamental goal. Yet, there is a difference between never, and when the time is right.

Starbucks closed its doors yesterday (May 29, 2018) for employee training. In a move that many may criticize as having the wrong priorities, Starbucks appears insistent on change.

Move Up or Down

We filter our to-do lists every day. Some items move up, some move down, and some never seem to get any action. Is this the training plan for your business? Are the best businesses always shipping product or fulfilling services with no time for training?

It may be very tempting to believe that everyone just shows up, rolls up their sleeves, and starts shipping. After all, the business model is well known and the Company doesn’t survive without revenue. Certainly, revenue and fulfillment for today is important.

I would also venture a guess that growth is on the CEO’s mind. Scaling up, more people, more technology, and more costs, which means more revenue is required.

Most organizations don’t get better when they only believe in shipping. Their scale becomes balancing the status quo. Great people don’t join, good people don’t stay, and those who are left without options just continue to ship.

Training Priorities

It seems logical that not shipping wastes time and money. What is the cost of not training? What are your training priorities?

Is training worth closing the doors for a few hours, is it worth rotating some work or training in shifts? What will the outcome be?

Employees typically rise to the competence of the most skilled in their environment. They communicate, get along, and engage at the level of group acceptance.

Quality, service, and caring about the outcomes improves with training. Reducing harmful conflict, having a customer centric focus, and leading the way to future growth happens with advancement, not the status quo.

Most people have a fundamental goal connected with work too, they want to make money.

It seems ironic when the intrinsic goals are similar, that planning to improve employee performance slides so far down the list.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), 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.

  • 16
    Apr 18
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born or made

Born or Made, Is This What Defines Your Career?

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It has been a debate for a long time. Are people born with talent, skills, and abilities, or do they work differently, harder, and with enough persistence to attain a higher level. What about your career, is it born or made?

When we see a really old tree, we wonder how it weathered all of those years. The cycle of the seasons, unexpected weather conditions, predators, insects, and even a human with an axe. There is almost a level of respect for its survival. It wasn’t born this way, it was made across time.

It is similar for the athlete. A fit, slender, or muscular shape, a stride or walk that displays confidence, they weren’t born this way. Most people give respect, because they know that it took hours of hard work, a good diet, and the discipline to stick with it.

About Your Career

Some people wonder, is a skill, talent, or simple good fortune born to you, or is it made? Certainly, some families have achieved levels of financial wealth, political positioning, or Hollywood status that jumps starts the career of their offspring. This is true for very few.

For everyone else, the extra effort is required. Everyone has a story of shortcomings, being overlooked, passed over, and unrecognized for what they offer. Additionally, many of the most successful have a story of countless hours and gigantic sacrifices they made along the way.

Of course, we can’t forget the envious, those with the misfortune, diversions, or a lack of money to really make it big. Certainly, these may be real factors that affect the speed, timing, and the ability to sustain. They often become an excuse, valid or not, about why some cannot achieve.

Does this answer the born or made question?

Born or Made

We see both ends of the continuum, but what is the third element? Either side has reasons for their position. Everything else is just in the middle, the mean, an average.

Some will talk about excuses. Others will express a lack of interest, a lack of desire, or unlucky breaks. Still others will proclaim that they weren’t born with it.

If you aren’t making your story better, maybe it is time to turn over a new leaf.

A tree may be born from a seed, how it grows is a different story.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), 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+

  • 03
    Apr 18
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will you arrive

Career Advancement: When Will You Arrive?

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Finish school, go to college, do an internship, get a starter job, and be persistent. That is the advice of many. It isn’t bad advice but when will you arrive?

What do many people who are serious about their career do? They follow the advice of others. They observe those who appear to align with their definition of success. Perhaps in some ways they attempt to mimic or follow a similar path. Will this lead you to the point where you will arrive?

Faux Arrival

I remember in high school when I thought I had arrived. I had a full time job with benefits before graduating at the mature age of seventeen. At the time, I thought I had arrived.

Within a very short twelve-month period, I realized that I hadn’t really arrived. I needed to do something more. I enrolled in a community college, attained a two-year degree, got a full time job in my field. At the time, I thought I had arrived.

Life continued. Chasing positions, titles, and ever increasing income. Each time I thought I had arrived. Each time later, I realized I hadn’t.

As a non-traditional (thirty something) student I pursued a bachelor’s degree and got it. I enrolled in a graduate program, pursued that degree and got it. For sure, now I had arrived.

Still after each successive advancement, I felt the arrival hadn’t yet occurred. I started a business, pursued my passion, had some incredible experiences, made some money, made some mistakes, but still felt I needed to arrive.

Do you see a pattern here? It has taken me my entire career of more than thirty years to both see and understand when people really arrive in their career. When will you arrive?

Define Arrival

For everyone who is pushing, everyone who is dreaming, those goal oriented unstoppable people who are pursuing more in their career. The answer is simple.

Just like the GPS device offers, there is always another journey. Another chance, a different direction, an alternative route, the route someone else chose, the detour, the storm, the straight road, high road, swampy road, and the one with the most curves.

When you arrive, that is it. You’re finished, but only for now.

As it turns out, for many, it has never been about arriving, maybe because there is still something more, something to pursue, a goal or a bucket list.

On the other hand, maybe it isn’t about arriving at all. Perhaps it is much more about the life you lead along the way.

Will You Arrive

You can relax more when stop asking yourself when you’ll arrive. Your career really is not made upon arrival.

Your career is made each and every day you continue to pursue the arrival.

The journey is more important. You’ll arrive at your final destination only when you stop.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), 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+

  • 06
    Mar 18
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advance your career

Extra Effort Will Advance Your Career

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Many people have spent their life, up to now, deciding on how they will advance their career. The advice to work harder seems impractical and working smarter feels more welcoming. For the career minded person, it may be about understanding the norms. Will you advance your career?

Life is full of averages. The things that we feel, see, and experience are always based on our expectations and perceptions.

Averages and Norms

Fifty years ago we couldn’t carry a telephone in our pocket, access information or data by sliding and swiping, or watch a video on a three inch by five inch electronic device. Today it is expected.

In the workplace, we deal with average people. They are the people who do what is expected. Their contributions are normalized on the bell curve. It is where most of the mass is located. Certainly, there are people on both sides of the median, but what is expected is something close to the middle.

The other ten to twenty percent are different. They are either failing in their attempt to be acceptable, or they are on the side where their performance is well above the norm.

Extra Effort

Above the norm is rare. Expectations drive output, even the hardest workers sometimes relax because doing more than the norm doesn’t often feel like it matters. People blend in, fill gaps, adjust, slow down, and deliver less.

Extra effort will advance your career because it represents a surprise.

The person who delivers exceptional customer service does so because it represents a surprise. Can you recall one of your best customer service experiences? When you do, it is because it was a surprise. It was more than what was expected.

Advance Your Career

Extra effort and the surprise represent what you may need to do to become visible, memorable, and to keep moving. It isn’t about showing up, it is about showing up with a surprise.

Extra effort doesn’t cost nearly what it is worth. Having similar or even less pay in some cases isn’t the point. The point is that your extra effort will advance your career because it isn’t about what you are paid for it, it is about what you become for it.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), 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+

  • 09
    Feb 18
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Emotional labor matters

Why Emotional Labor Matters More

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The daily grind, the grit and effort it takes to go to work every day, to exist in the World of workplace politics, the boss’s pets, and a paycheck every other week. It is what millions of people feel about their job, it is laborious. Do you think emotional labor matters?

Frequent Questions

Many people have great jobs. Many people take for granted what their daily grind provides. Actually, that emotional labor that they are putting in, that is what will matter the most.

What high school did you attend?

Where did you get your degree?

Did you get your degree online?

The questions all appear to matter and they are the essence of the job applicant, the hiring committee, or the card puncher. What may really matter the most is if you have put in the emotional labor.

Attitude, Determination, and Persistence

Emotional labor answers the questions about your attitude towards work, your discipline across the long haul, and your ability to navigate shifting environments.

The questions that really need answered are more about what you’ve accomplished. How do you face adversity? What projects or teams have you led? What is your decision making style? How would you describe your level of integrity? How do you plan for the unplanned?

The online job application and your resume don’t often speak to what you are really capable of doing. The weight of who you are, your strength, determination, and the associated outcomes are not about a piece of paper, or your digital application.

Getting to the door and having it open often comes from your resume or curriculum vitae, but that is just a paper trail.

Emotional Labor Matters

What matters more is the illustration of your emotional labor. That will be the best determinate of your future success.

When people ask my opinion about what will happen next with an employee, a boss, or their significant other, I usually suggest that the best predictor of future performance is past performance.

Put in the emotional labor, it matters more.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), 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+

  • 31
    Jan 18
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Career path

Who Will Choose Your Career Path?

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There are many people giving career advice. The experience of a career may be different for everyone. Like success, respect, and good art, each person may define it differently. What is your career path?

People nearing the end of their career may often suggest that you should do what you love, love what you do, and make sure you enjoy life.

Those who are closer to the beginning of their career may suggest that money or compensation is a bigger driver. We can’t forget about those who claim schedule flexibility, flex time, or time off, as holding a significant importance.

Career Options

Honestly, your choices and strategy has a significant number of options. Doing what you love, loving what you do, receiving more pay, accepting less pay, travel opportunities, flex schedule, work from home, a car, a 401K, paid healthcare, and so much more.

What about skills, are you doing something that aligns with your natural talent? Can you learn more about something that interests you even when you aren’t so skilled?

Considering that there are so many options why is there often a lack of job satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty.

Organizational Psychology

People closely connected with organizational psychology would probably suggest that the leadership and culture has something to do with that. Does the organizational culture shift to fit the people or should the people shift to fit the culture?

A losing battle may be to think that any individual will push, shove, or stretch the culture and create their own uniquely special opportunity. Sure, some of the job may always flex to accommodate the best of the best from the person filling its shoes. However, it is unlikely you’ll completely change the dynamics.

Career Path

Three things I think make a lot of sense about a career:

  1. Give one hundred percent of you for whatever compensation you accept. Never scale your output by the amount of compensation.
  2. Always remain open to learning and improving your knowledge and skills. Everything changes, you’ll have the choice of change or staying stuck.
  3. Job markets are typically selfish. They don’t really care about how hard you are working or the sacrifices you’ve made. They care about the best story and those who can deliver on it. So build it.

When we remove the money from the calculation, things really change. Remove the security of the job and that mixes things up too. The real constant is change and so the highest risk for your career is insisting on staying exactly the same.

You should pick your career path, unless of course you would rather let that up to someone else.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), 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+

  • 04
    Dec 17
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Performance affects your career

How Performance Affects Your Career

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Students and professionals alike are often thinking about the future of their career. Our focus often becomes about changing, learning, and growing. All of this is good stuff but is it really how performance affects your career?

Many people buy the book, they watch the video, and they pursue additional education. Certainly, those are worthwhile investments.

Short-term Events

Unfortunately, many of those same people will attempt to position what happens next based on a short-term event. Get the new job, achieve a promotion, and insist on the higher salary. All good ideas, but they are events.

Some change may occur the moment you decide you’re going to make it happen, but getting there is usually a long-term process.

Presenting Problems

Recently, a client telephoned me with an expressed need. In my line of work, we often call this the presenting problem. The presenting problem was what they viewed as a technical issue. They were seeking some technical training but expressed they couldn’t find any training programs that fit.

In reality, the technical skills were present, the workplace habits and culture was the root of the problem. We all know that a problem fixed, that isn’t at the root, is a problem that will reoccur.

Presenting problems and the real problem are not always the same. What they wanted, as commanded by the CEO, was a technical fix. What they really needed was a program related to their technical need but one that reinforces changing their habits and organizational culture.

Perhaps most important is that this organization was looking for an event that would solve their problem.

Change Process

Events may single handedly inspire change. It may create the moment that you decide. Events typically don’t yield systemic change. An event may spark it, but long-term effort is what will create it.

This is true for organizational development. It is also true for individual career growth.

Performance Affects Your Career

Change is a process that includes persistence, tenacity, and consistent effort. It is not just a one-time occurrence, or single event, but a long-term process.

Performance affects your career, but for growth, it will take more than a single event or learning a technical skill. It will be what you develop across time. It is a process of habits consistently repeated.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), 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+

  • 20
    Oct 17
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Fear become habit appreciative Strategies

Can Fear Become a Habit, Should It?

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Workplace motivation is stimulated by many factors. Leaders in the workplace are striving for good habits that have positive reinforcement so that success is achieved. Fear is an emotional response and is often an inappropriate motivator. Can fear become an inappropriate habit?

Fear is powerful. There really shouldn’t be much confusion about that. We see fear in action as a motivator all the time.

A storm is coming, better get to the store.

Get the flu shot; you don’t want to get sick.

I’ve heard sales are down, make sure you look busy.

All three of these examples may have relevance and the intended action may even be a good idea, but what is the motivator? Yes, exactly, it is fear.

Facing the Truth

Sometimes facing the truth can be fearful, but often fear will cause action. It is an emotional choice. We may confuse it with a business only (no emotion) decision, but it is still about fear.

Fear isn’t always a bad motivator. Sometimes we have to face our fears in order to achieve more. When we risk little or nothing about the same amount of growth will occur, little or none. Risk involves fear.

Fear and Growth

Admitting the risk, accepting the fear, even saying it aloud may not be a bad thing. Writing it on the white board during the meeting may be exactly the point you need to make. Groan through it or grow through it, warriors on your team will choose growth.

Scaring people into performing with threats is probably never a good idea. Facing fear for growth is powerful.

Should Fear Become Habit?

Moderation may be the key for success. Telling yourself or your team repeatedly to be afraid may make fear become a habit. It may signal the habit of, never leave the comfort zone because it is far too scary. This is likely a habit you’ll want to avoid.

Be brave, speak of the challenge, accept it and grow. Fear as a habit will likely leave you behind.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), 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
    Jul 17
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positive culture appreciative strategies

3 Ways to Create a More Positive Culture and Scale Up

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Positivity is a popular discussion item. People talk about being positive, but what they really mean is that they are trying to not be negative. What about scale up versus scale down or spin up versus spin down? Are you part of creating a positive culture?

Our modern society has some interesting interest groups. We have groups who focus on helping the less fortunate. Groups interested in global environmental changes, and we even have the minimalist groups, those who might focus on reduction.

Up or Down

In our business communities and inside our organizations, we sometimes see challenges with growth and rapid expansion. We might also see interest in driving down costs, eliminating waste, and improving efficiency.

Scaling is a hot word. The buzz question might be, “How are you scaling up?”

We might encounter somewhat of a paradox, yet few connect the dots. Considering all of the scaling, all of the focus on eliminating waste and all of the setting of standards and strictly adhering to them, is there room for a positive culture?

Is it possible to shrink, reduce, and eliminate your way to more? More growth, more sales, and more profit? Does the mindset of reduction create a cultural shift of reduce and stabilize? Is this an act of scaling up or scaling down? Does it create a positive culture or a negative, declining culture?

Positive Culture

Here are three ways you can work towards a positive culture and scale up:

  1. Encourage more. Often there is so much effort spent on reduction and elimination that more of anything feels wrong to employee teams. Change the wording, the symbols, and the traditions that place value on reduction. Make them more about prosperity and growth.
  2. Customer emphasis. Nearly everyone says that they are customer focused but are they? When the focus is reduction, elimination, and high efficiency the best question might be, “How does this impact the customer?” Are prices dropping, value increasing, and are services expanding?
  3. Scale up. Everything needs to stay within budget and profit is always critically important but you likely will not grow when your focus screams shrink. Encourage renewed outreach and get the customer more involved. Connect more and make your story about growth not squeeze.

Scaling

Certainly, the mind-set of positive thinking is powerful. It isn’t just words or it isn’t necessarily just the opposite of negative thinking. Your culture might use words that seem positive when the exact nature of actions and behaviors are spinning down, not up.

Is your business or organization creating a positive culture?

Scale up.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a four-time author and 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+

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