February 1, 2003

A free Ezine sent to you twice a month by Glen Rediehs, Ph.D.: Personal Coach, Corporate Coach, Organization Development Consultant

Web site: www.SolutionLeader.com

E-mail: Glen@SolutionLeader.com

Solution Leader Ezine will give you solutions for your personal life and the people side of your business. Every issue is filled with practical strategies plus a little humor.

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In This Issue:

What’s It Going to Take to Achieve Your Goals? – Part Three of a Six-Part Series

A Little Humor

Thought for the Day

Why Don’t They Work Together?

In the Next Issue

What’s It Going to Take to Achieve Your Goals?

(Part Three of a Six-Part Series)

Part One of this series challenged you to scale your level of satisfaction with different areas of your life and begin developing some goals.

Part Two showed you how to set goals that will actually work.

To see Parts One or Two, go to www.SolutionLeader.com/archives.html

Now, let’s look at the next step. Question: What’s it going to take to achieve your goals? Answer: an action plan.

First, get some ideas about what you will need to do to achieve your goal. Write them down to work with later.

I encourage you to think about times when you already demonstrated the goal – or a little bit of the goal. Frequently, people are just trying to make a regular thing out of something they have occasionally already done.

For example, your goal might be creating a wider circle of friends or developing several close, deep friendships. Ask yourself, “When has there been a time when I have made new friends?” Or, “What were the closest, deepest friendships I have had?” “How did I do that?” Look to the past for successes. Strategies that worked in the past may work for you now. The same approach could help in developing action plans for goals in areas such as managing money, taking care of your personal health, advancing your career, growing spiritually, etc. There are some goals for which you may never have had related, successful experiences. But, that’s rare.

If looking in the past for little bits of success with your goal is not useful, then look around you. There are people who have made new friends, developed close, deep friendships, managed money, taken care of their personal health, advanced their career, developed spiritually, etc. Ask yourself, “How did they do that? What are the best practices for achieving my goal?” Observe these people. Talk to these people. Read books about achieving the specific goal you are working on.

Second, get some ideas about the resources you have that will help you achieve your goal. Write them down to use later.

One way to go about this is to scale your level of confidence. On a scale of 0 to 10 (0 = there is absolutely no way I could achieve this goal; 10 = it might be very hard, but I’m absolutely certain that I will achieve my goal), scale your level of confidence of success with your goal. Wherever you are on the scale, ask yourself, “What gives me this level of confidence in achieving my goal? What is it I know about myself or my situation that I am this confident?”

Your confidence might come from your history of achieving goals, from physical or financial resources you have, from your personal spirituality, from elements (friends, performance reviews, etc.) in your situation.

Third, develop an action plan. Ask yourself, “What’s the first small step that will get me moving toward my goal? And then what? And, then what would be the next step?” Develop a series of steps that will lead to the achievement of your goal. These are not things you hope other people will do. These are steps that you will do. The action steps need to be small enough to be do-able and big enough to be meaningful and satisfying to you. Consult your action idea list from the first step.

Make yourself accountable. Set finish dates for each step. Write these down! Go to your calendar and enter what you will be doing on a daily basis and completion dates for each step. Block out segments of time that you will need to get the job done. Show respect to yourself. This is your project – to make your life everything you want it to be. Work as hard or harder for yourself than you would for anybody else.

As you develop your action plan, consider what resources you have or can get that will be helpful in accomplishing each step. For example, you might need to change your budget to make financial resources available. You might need to take a course or consult with friends for help. Whatever it is, be sure to take the steps to have that resource at your disposal.

WANT A LITTLE HELP?

Need a little help thinking about the future you want and setting workable goals?

It’s been my life’s work and my passion to help individuals and organizations create their own best futures. Let’s work on your future together. You can make it happen!

PLEASE CALL ME at 704-788-9184 or Email me at Glen@SolutionLeader.com.

A Little Humor

Beatles Computer Song – “Yesterday”

Yesterday,

All those backups seemed a waste of pay.

Now my database has gone away.

Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly, There's not half the files there used to be,

And there's a milestone hanging over me

The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong

What it was I could not say.

Now all my data's gone

And I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Yesterday,

The need for back-ups seemed so far away.

I knew my data was all here to stay,

Now I believe in yesterday.

Wisdom From Kids

"When your Mom is mad at your dad, don't let her brush your hair."

-Taylia, age 11

"A puppy always has bad breath--even after eating a Tic-Tac."

- Andrew, age 9

"Never hold a dustbuster and a cat at the same time."

- Kyoyo, age 11

"If you want a kitten, start out by asking for a horse."

-Naomi, age 15

"Felt-tip markers are not good to use as lipstick."

-Lauren, age 9

"When you get a bad grade in school, show it to your Mom when she's on the phone."

-Alyesha, age 13

Kiss per Yard

Walking up to a department store's fabric counter, an attractive girl asked, "I want to buy this material for a new dress. How much does it cost?" "Only one kiss per yard," replied the smirking male clerk.

"That's fine," replied the girl. "I'll take ten yards." With expectation and anticipation written all over his face, the clerk quickly measured out and wrapped the cloth, then teasingly held it out. The girl snapped up the package and pointed to a little old man standing beside her. "Grandpa will pay the bill," she smiled.

Thought for the Day

One stormy night many years ago, an elderly man

and his wife entered the lobby of a small hotel in

Philadelphia. Trying to get out of the rain, the couple

approached the front desk hoping to get some shelter

for the night. "Could you possibly give us a room here?"

the husband asked.

The clerk, a friendly man with a winning smile, looked

at the couple and explained that there were three

conventions in town. "All of our rooms are taken," the

clerk said. "But I can't send a nice couple like you out

into the rain at one o'clock in the morning. Would you

perhaps be willing to sleep in my room? It's not exactly

a suite, but it will be good enough to make you folks

comfortable for the night."

When the couple declined, the young man pressed on.

"Don't worry about me. I'll make out just fine," the clerk

told them.

So the couple agreed. As he paid his bill the next morning,

the elderly man said to the clerk, "You are the kind of

manager who should be the boss of the best hotel in

the United States. Maybe someday I'll build one for you."

The clerk looked at them and smiled. The three of them

had a good laugh. As they drove away, the elderly couple

agreed that the helpful clerk was indeed exceptional, as

finding people who are both friendly and helpful isn't easy.

Two years passed. The clerk had almost forgotten the

incident when he received a letter from the old man. It

recalled that stormy night and enclosed a round-trip

ticket to New York, asking the young man to pay them

a visit. The old man met him in New York, and led him

to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. He then

pointed to a great new building there, a palace of reddish

stone, with turrets and watchtowers thrusting up to the

sky. "That," said the older man, "is the hotel I have just

built for you to manage."

"You must be joking," the young man said.

"I can assure you I am not," said the older man, a sly

smile playing around his mouth. The older man's name

was William Waldorf Astor, and the magnificent

structure was the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

The young clerk who became its first manager was

George C. Boldt. This young clerk never foresaw the

turn of events that would lead him to become the

manager of one of the world's most glamorous hotels.

Treat everyone with love and respect -- and you cannot fail!

WHY DON’T THEY WORK TOGETHER?

Jim got a sales lead in Sarah’s territory. But, he doesn’t intend to share it with Sarah.

A national company studied best practices among several of the organization’s plants. When the results were shared, plant managers resisted implementing more effective methods that their sister plants utilized.

Margaret is a member of a team working on a cross-functional problem. She knows a change that she could make in her department that would help. But, she doesn’t offer her idea to the team.

Why Don’t They Work Together?

Why don’t these people work together? If you talked to the Jims, the plant managers, or the Margarets in your organization, you might discover issues like these:

• They don’t get recognition or reward for collaboration – only for their own

individual results. So, why bother?

• They believe that people ought to solve their own problems. If you go to

others, you might look incompetent.

• They are unwilling to take the time to work with others because it might detract

from their own personal performance.

• They would like to seek help. But, they don’t know how to find the

appropriate expertise.

• They don’t know how to work together. They always worked on their own

and don’t want to change now.

• “Boomers” don’t want to work with “Gen-Xers” – and visa versa.

This is a new business world of teaming, collaborating and partnering. Sharing knowledge, coordinating activities and working together across boundaries are essential in companies that expect to thrive and grow. Every time employees resist working together or act as if they have little to do with the rest of the organization, it chips away at morale and hurts the bottom line.

How Can You Help Them Work Together?

What can you do to help your employees work together?

• When interviewing candidates for a position, use questions that reveal how the

person handles problems and how well they work together.

• Assess whether your company culture supports doing things together. Do you

reward teamwork and collaboration or do individual “superstars” get all the attention?

• Develop incentives for collaboration (positive comments at meetings, awards at

ceremonies, tickets for events, letters of thanks, etc.)

• Consider compensation that rewards mentoring, collaborating, team

performance, etc. as much as individual results. In a recent survey, only 30% of small businesses used variable pay for group or team awards.

• Develop managers who focus on contributions across departments as much as

on individual and departmental performance.

• Consider assessing both individual and cross-function performance in

performance reviews.

• Recognize “credit-givers” as well as “credit-takers.”

• Create regular occasions for people from different parts of the company to work

together on projects so that they begin to appreciate each other’s contributions.

• Create forums to share information about company goals. Quantify how each

department contributes.

• Provide coaching for work groups.

• Identify mentors with expertise in a variety of areas or develop electronic

databases so that information is available to people to who need it.

Your goal in all of this is to create a work force that values “Internal Customer Service.” Internal Customer Service is the service provided to fellow employees and other departments within your organization. In a business with high Internal Customer Service, employees regard other employees and other departments as their customers. Taking time to work with another department or a colleague is not considered an interruption, but an opportunity to serve an internal customer. Such activities aren’t viewed as taking a person away from their “real work.” It is “real work.”

Where have you seen employees working together and bringing great results for business? How did the leaders in that organization create a corporate culture like that? Send your stories, quotes, thoughts. As space permits, I will try to publish them. Send them to Glen@SolutionLeader.com

WANT A LITTLE HELP?

It’s been my life’s work and my passion to help individuals and organizations create their own best futures. Let’s work on it. You can do it!

PLEASE CALL ME at 704-788-9184 or Email me at Glen@SolutionLeader.com.

In the Next Issue:

How to Turn Your Good Intentions Into Reality – Part Four of a Six-Part Series

A Little Humor

Thought for the Day

How to Nurture Positive Workplace Attitudes

In the Next Issue

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