By 2025, millennials—individuals born between 1980 and 1995, will make up 75% of the U.S. and Canadian workforces1. As thousands of millennials graduate this spring, the fortunate ones will be coming to a workplace near you. Here are four secrets that will help you communicate with them successfully. They communicate needs when you ask. Whereas older…
Category: Soft Skills
Mid-Week Mentor
I grew up on a dairy farm in Central Pennsylvania. My father invested in the Ayrshire breed, and today my sister, Gay, has an Ayrshire farm where she milks 25 head to sell milk and make cheese and other specialty products. She also runs Hameau Farms Camp, a summer camp for girls ages 9-13 who…
Time Out!
I just received a text from a senior vice president who wrote, “Seems like my world is caving in.” Hmm…if you knew the back story you might agree. Now can you put on your servant lenses? As impossible as it might seem, the only way to stop the personal “cave in” is to focus on…
Mid Week Mentor
Another fascinating week in Change Management — perhaps better framed as Change Leadership. It’s about selling the future state or the vision. Two major ideas arise when we put on our “servant” lenses and truly focus on others’ concerns and needs, thereby denying what we want to accomplish: It is not “what” but WHY! Communicate…
Time Out!
We need to hit the pause button. I recently heard a statistic that senior level executives who use smartphones work an average of 70 hours per week. Their productivity, however, has not increased in proportion to the additional time spent working. Fred Vornbrock, our GM, challenged our senior team to track our time for two…
Mid Week Mentor
Time Out! The art of becoming a servant leader. Just back from a great vacation in St. Croix with my wife, Colleen, where I successfully hit the pause button on work, but not life. One morning, we drove across the island and toured the Cruzan Rum Distillery. Here was my servant leadership takeaway —…
Mid Week Mentor
How do you define “leadership?” I find it rather curious that so many people in leadership roles seem almost puzzled at first when asked to define leadership. Given a moment or two, most come up with something that might sound good in a textbook, yet it doesn’t illustrate what a leader truly does and certainly…
Time Out!
This past week, a friend asked me if I could choose one word for the year 2017, what it would be. After thinking for a few minutes, I concluded “helpfulness” because it is so challenging. I want to be helpful in my head, but often my actions and words fall way short. Helpfulness is the…
Five Steps to Solve Prospects’ Problems and Seal the Deal
Whether a sales professional’s sales cycle is short or long, here are five specific steps that will help seal the deal. Consider the customer’s point of view. Dale Carnegie’s 17th Human Relations principle, ‘Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view,’ is paramount to building a strong relationship with customers. While…
Enthusiasm is a Success Strategy
By Kathleen Himler, Dale Carnegie Training Enthusiasm is rooted in the Greek language – “God within”. Deep huh? I prefer to put it in every day context. Think of enthusiasm in terms of this visual. Open up a can of coca cola (any brand!). What do hear? Pour it out. What do notice. Take a…