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Please, no more rules
/in Sharpening Your Personal Leadership Skills/by Tom DoescherMy partner used to work in an office of 10 people. When someone would step out of line, instead of the boss confronting this person, they would establish a new rule. Needless to say, there were an awful lot of controls and restrictions in place for such a small staff.
First of all, Level 5 leaders (i.e. the best leaders according to Jim Collins in his book Good to Great) should wisely confront associates who are exhibiting bad behavior. Second, remember that job-seekers would rather work for a company that does not burden its associates with hundreds of unnecessary rules. If they’re considering several offers, they’ll choose the business that seems to respect its employees most.
The fewer the rules, the better — “Speaking the truth in love” equals higher profits and as Jim Collins would say, a business built to last.
Talking down about competitors
/in Extraordinary Customer/Client Service/by Tom DoescherWe all can fall into this trap. One example of a potential talking-down situation is after someone leaves our company, goes to a competitor, and uses (steals) proprietary information/knowledge (I am not going to deal with the legal aspects of this situation; rather, I’m considering how we should deal with customers or prospective customers). Here are a couple of other examples of times we may be caught speaking negatively about a competitor: 1) We know our competitor has offered a lowball price, which they will not be able to sustain; 2) We know our competitor’s product/service is inferior to ours, but the prospective customer cannot discern the difference.
There may be a way to tastefully educate your prospect and open their eyes to any misinformation/misrepresentations, but my experience is that when you step into this dialogue, you’re usually the one who comes out looking bad. My strong advice is to focus on your prospect and your product/service, and helping them understand why you are the perfect solution. Provide examples and use customer references — especially people your customer may know in their industry.
How do you feel when someone else speaks poorly of his or her competitors? Have you ever made a sale by bad-mouthing a competitor? I would love to hear about it.
“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”
/in Sharpening Your Personal Leadership Skills/by Tom DoescherThis quote is from President Harry Truman. I (Tom) made it until age 30 before I developed the discipline of reading (i.e., other than Sports Illustrated and the sports section of the local newspapers). One of my running buddies was always talking about the most recent book he had read, and his enthusiasm was contagious. Before long, I had become a “real” reader, too.
We highly recommend incorporating a reading program into your daily routine. It is amazing what a difference it can make in expanding your knowledge base and broadening your view. We are currently reading a book about the pre- and post-Depression eras, called Forgotten Man. The similarities between FDR and President Obama are amazing. We have come to realize that there may, in fact, be nothing new under the sun.
We would recommend starting by reading about something you are interested in. There are some really cool books on leadership, written by great coaches, for example. Just do it!
You can find my book list(.docx) on the resources page.