knowledge Archives - Page 2 of 2

06
Dec 18
-

Are Your Skills Rusty?

Tags : career culture knowledge rusty skills

Working hard to perfect your skills seems like the right thing to do. Learn it, deliver it, and live it. It seems logical. It is the discipline behind many quality control initiatives. Perfect it and protect it. In a World of constant change, are your skills rusty?

I’m fascinated with certain aspects of history. Probably, outside of news, my favorite television channel is the History Channel. I don’t always believe everything I see there, but a few of the shows are favorites.

Rusty Things

Recently, I’ve watched several episodes of the Curse of Oak Island. A series about an island in the North Atlantic Ocean where it is believed that there is buried treasure.

They’ve found some interesting stuff. Some of the items are at least a couple of hundred years old. Large iron spikes, and recently a large hook that may have been used to load or unload goods from ships. Interesting.

Another sometimes interesting show is American Pickers. Somewhere in their storyline they claim they seek, rusty gold. What they really mean is that finding old rusty metal is like finding gold, at least to them.

I have a car, and a Chevy Tahoe. My Tahoe is twenty years old. A lot of miles, but still runs well. The rust is catching up on it though, and it needs some work.

Skills Rusty?

What is it about rust? It just never stops. Eventually all the metal or iron artifacts not found and recovered on Oak Island will return to the earth. The same is true for what the pickers seek. My Tahoe, will likely one day be salvaged and some components recycled.

One the other hand, if we care for it, protect it, repaint it, or freshen it up it can last for a long time. Maybe, in some cases be better than new.

All this same logic applies to your job skills. It also applies to the organization you work for, its culture, the people, and the market it serves.

Rust is always working against you. Don’t get rusty.

-DEG

Note: The photograph is of an old bicycle frame with the manufacturers badge on the front of the steering stem. This turned up in August 2018 after heavy rains washed a deep mud and rock slide across nearly 40 feet of my yard.

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.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

24
Oct 18
-

Developing Habits May Be Why You’re Overlooked

Tags : career developing habits expert knowledge overlooked

Brush your teeth, go to work, and drink your coffee. Hit the gym, eat the low carb foods, and shower daily. Largely, most of the actions we take are based on habits. Are you developing habits? What are they?

Learn, Do, Repeat

Most of what we do is approached by learning first. Some of our work, often the best work, develops from the repetitive nature of execution. Time spent on the execution across many hours and we’re an expert.

There is an evolution for most careers and most organizations. They don’t exist just because they learned. They exist by what is replicated across time.

Online retail businesses, they market and advertise, they book orders, and ship.

Manufacturing, starts with a design, some raw materials, a build, and then ship.

Education teaches to curriculum, follows the plan, and diplomas or degrees are awarded.

It is mostly about a repetitive process. Executed day after day across time. Perhaps a habitual process that results in success.

Developing Habits

Often one of the biggest stumbling blocks for success in a career or for the organization is that they fail to develop the right habits. The habits that lead them to success.

People earn the degree, but work in a different field.

People buy the most expensive technology product but only use the simplest features. The ones they are comfortable with based on their habits.

Someone reads the book, watches the video, or attends the seminar. No new habits formed, no change occurs. Knowledge matters, but habits not knowledge create results.

Habits Are Impact

Nearly everything we do is approached by learning it first. It is the actions taken after the learning that are the most impactful.

For example, many people believe they are experts at customer service. Their belief is based on their mastery of knowledge. This knowledge often fails to translate to actions and habits that lead to better results.

You may know much, you may even know a whole lot more than the average.

What you do across time may be exactly why you’re being overlooked.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), 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+

06
Jun 18
-

Learning How Is Not Where Things Start and Stop

Tags : habits knowledge learning momentum skills

Learning how is a good step. People often think, “When I don’t know how, someone will help me.” Learning how is important, is it most important?

Today people jump on a Google search, ask Siri, or head over to YouTube to discover some do it yourself tactics. This may work, in fact, it does work for many things. However, the home mechanic, sink fixer, or roof repair skill builders may still be too much for many people and are appropriately given to a professional.

Are there things that you should learn and then turn into a new habit?

Habits Last

Many eager people in the workplace want to learn how. They want to learn how to navigate the system, how to be a better leader, or how to improve their communication.

People go to school, they may attend college, do an apprenticeship, or get formal on-the-job training. All these things can be good and beneficial but learning how is just where things start.

What we do every day has much to do with our knowledge but knowing and doing are not the same.

It is the habits that we form that will create the most momentum. Attitude can be a habit. Approaching work with energy and enthusiasm can be a habit. What we do first, next, and at the end of the day is often based on habit.

Learning How

Learning how is important, but it is also often quickly forgotten. When we find that we need to know we’ll ask again, check the manual, or go visit YouTube. None of those are a bad plan, but they are about knowledge that isn’t retained or practiced. A habit will last.

When we make learning how a habit, and back it up with knowledge gain turned into more new habits we find more success.

Often the secret for getting along, creating a better team, and being a better leader is not based purely on learning how.

It is based on learning how and turning new skills into a habit.

-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+

25
Jan 18
-

New Habits May Come From Employee Training

Tags : employee training habits knowledge leadership

The interest in employee training often sparks from a problem. A breakdown in customer service, an incorrect shipment, or supervisors who lack skills to lead, may lead to an interest for employee training. Will it work?

Since I’m in the business, it is something that is near and dear to my heart. Training can be very effective but its impact is often conditioned on many things. Sure, you have to establish a good learning environment, you must have great content, and the flow should maintain both an interested and open atmosphere.

Those are all important, but for behavioral training and soft skill development equally important is the organizational commitment for change. How will the organization embrace new skills?

Learning and Practice

Learning is just the front edge. Much of the soft skill development is not rocket science. True, many people have room to learn more, but often the biggest value isn’t so much in the new material learned, but in replacing bad habits with good.

Establishing new habits is often critical, following up with customers, framing our meeting discussions with respect and open mindedness, and leading through inspiration instead of fear.

Practice will have much to do with success.

New Habits

If I want to get fit, I may know how, but if I only go to the gym once a month I’m probably not going to change much.

When I want a healthier diet, I may have to make time to plan, shop, and have different buying habits. It isn’t always that I don’t know how, it is about my habits.

In both cases, it is also be a commitment of time, money, and resources.

On the flip side of this there is often denial.

I’m fit enough, I’ll just wear some extra baggy clothes, or I’m not really overweight I just don’t like stairs.

This is often true in our personal lives, and metaphorically true for organizations.

Employee Training

Can employee training help my organization? Absolutely it can, it will close knowledge gaps, refresh lost or forgotten best practices, and motivate and inspire employees to make a difference.

However, both the employees and the organization will need to improve by replacing bad habits with good, then repeat.

– 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+

05
Dec 17
-

Actionable Customer Service and Missed Opportunities

Tags : actionable customer service knowledge service economy

There is a great thing about customer service. Nearly everyone believes that he or she knows how to do it well. Customer service isn’t rocket science, but it does have a lot to do with our actions. Actionable customer service may be one of the most important things about your knowledge.

Yesterday I attended a C Suite Thought Summit in New York City. Jeffrey Hayzlett and his team hosted the event and they always do a fantastic job.

What are some of the greatest things about any business event? Sure, it is the speakers, panel discussions, and sometimes the food, but the best thing is the networking opportunities. Networking opportunities abound at these events and often people don’t take advantage of them.

Missed Opportunities

At the event as I chatted with someone I just met, she mentioned some of her interests and why she was attending. I definitely knew a person there that she should meet and I suggested she go introduce herself.

She said, “I should just go right up and give my pitch?”

It was a question, not a statement. The answer of course is obvious. It was obvious to her and obvious to me.

It certainly was not that she didn’t know what to do. She was hesitant to act.

Service Economy

We are in the midst of an expansive service economy. This isn’t really new, it has been shifting for decades. Only now, it is expanding at a pace perhaps unlike anything that has happened before.

Service is what creates value for organizations. It is an opportunity and one that shouldn’t be missed.

One problem is that many see it happening right before their eyes but they don’t always act. They probably know what to do, or at least have a good idea to work with, but often they don’t act.

Actionable Customer Service

For everyone, whether it is the moment you are in the middle of a sales transaction, or the moment a new opportunity pops up right in front of you. Only one thing stands in your way.

It often isn’t a lack of knowledge. It is a lack of action.

-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
Jan 16
-

Innovation and the Generations

Tags : change Kaizen knowledge organization culture six sigma

Who are the best innovators? Does a generational trend exist that makes one workplace generation more innovative when compared to another? The fast argument may be that traditionals and baby boomers are stuck in their ways and in an opposing view the millennials or generation 9/11 people are more likely to innovate.

Like most complex subjects, there can be arguments from many different sides. Here are three simple ideas to help break this down:

Willingness to Change. Innovation requires change. The truth about change is that it makes everyone feel a bit uneasy, nervous, and afraid. Propensity for change is typically not a generational issue, it has a whole lot more to do with what a person feels they have to gain or lose, regardless of generational representation.

Restrictive Knowledge. Effective problem solving usually involves approaching problems within a framework. Often we frame situations and problems based on our knowledge. This very act of framing often limits innovation. Many experts would agree the best innovation happens when you let go of knowledge that restricts vision and as some would say, dream big.

Creativity Culture. We often hear about cultures being built through mainstream quality and efficiency ideologies like Six Sigma, LEAN, and Kaizen. These high quality principles (which are effective for their designated purpose) often drive people to reach a standard and once the standard is achieved to never change, never deviate, and to just repeat the process. People who are conditioned to think within these high quality standards may develop a restrictive view of innovation. A creativity culture requires unleashing restrictive thinking.

Keep in mind that in a world of constant change, the riskiest place to be is stuck in the status quo. Innovation, like change, knowledge, and culture are not limited to any specific generation. Innovation occurs when individuals and teams are willing to let go of limitations, step out of their comfort zone, and support each other to explore new or alternative possibilities.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker, and coach that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is the author of the newly released book, Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce. Reach him through his website at DennisEGilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

17
Jun 14
-

Legacy

Tags : knowledge legacy wisdom

Legacy is a bold word. People sometimes don’t see or believe that each and every person has the opportunity to build some kind of legacy. It may seem small or insignificant, or it may seem larger than life. When you consider legacy, size doesn’t matter—does it?

Sure, being one the richest people on the planet, the President of a country, or a medical researcher who discovers a valuable cure may enable a rather notable legacy; but even ordinary people build them. There is that all important teacher you had in high school, that friend of a friend who created something special, there are aunts, uncles, mom’s and dad’s. We can go on, co-workers, a boss, you name it. People have the opportunity to build a legacy; but perhaps only when they choose to.

A legacy is handed down. It is a gift, a rite of passage. It can be knowledge, wisdom, or even something material, but it happens most when you make a conscious choice to build one.

What legacy are you building—or am I asking the wrong person?

– DEG

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

Tag Archives: knowledge

Dec 18

-

Rusty Things

Skills Rusty?

Oct 18

-

Learn, Do, Repeat

Developing Habits

Habits Are Impact

Jun 18

-

Habits Last

Learning How

Jan 18

-

Learning and Practice

New Habits

Employee Training

Dec 17

-

Missed Opportunities

Service Economy

Actionable Customer Service

Jan 16

-

Jun 14

-

Search This Website

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Blog (Filter) Categories

Follow me on Twitter

Assessment Services and Tools

Recent Posts

Email Signup

Subscribe to newsletter

Contact Info