Working Resources Blog

Leadership Secrets for Influencing Others – The Brain Science of Persuasion

Are you working in an organization which values leaders capable of influencing others? Do the leaders in your organization focus more on logic and reason than emotion when attempting to persuade others?

 

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I relying on logic and reason more than emotion when influencing people?” Exceptional leaders persuade others by appealing to emotion.

 

Are you good at influencing people at work? Do you focus on what would persuade other people rather than yourself? Are you passionate about focusing on influencing people to achieve significant goals at work that emotionally engage your people?

 

Two Major Persuasion Mistakes

 

People make two major mistakes when trying to persuade others:

1.    Using the argument that would work best on themselves

2.    Overestimating the power of logic and rationality

The scientific study of persuasion has continued for more than half a century, yet executives across all fields make presentations based on faulty assumptions.

 

Instead of researching what makes people buy or make decisions, they ask themselves, “What would motivate me to participate in this program or buy this product?”

 

When learning economics, finance and management, executives refer to outside experts to achieve a level of competence. But when it comes to persuasion skills, most believe they already possess an intuitive understanding of psychological principles, simply by virtue of living life and interacting with others. Consequently, they’re less likely to consult psychological research on how people make decisions.

This overconfidence leads many executives, managers and salespeople to miss opportunities for improving their presentations and efforts to influence others.

 

The fact is, persuasion can be defined, learned and successfully incorporated into anyone’s communication abilities. It doesn’t matter if you work in sales, marketing or another field directly related to persuasion. Every leader or manager depends on getting things done through others.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who translates strategy into execution. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

 

 

Leadership Secrets to Persuade People – Getting Things Done Through Others

Are you working in an organization which values leaders capable of influencing others? Do the leaders in your organization focus more on logic and reason than emotion when attempting to persuade others?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I relying on logic and reason more than emotion when influencing people?” Exceptional leaders persuade others by appealing to emotion.

Are you good at influencing people at work? Do you focus on what would persuade other people rather than yourself? Are you passionate about focusing on influencing people to achieve significant goals at work that emotionally engage your people?

Getting Things Done Through Others

Personal and organizational success hinges on how well you persuade people to willingly follow your directions. Your boss may give you specific powers, but execution and results come from successfully influencing others.

So, what have we learned about the process of persuasion that we didn’t know before? What does brain science tell us about the natural processes of decision-making and being influenced? What can we learn to become better persuaders?

Actually, we’ve discovered a great deal in the last 10 to 15 years about how the human brain processes information. With the recent advent of live, real-time brain-imaging technology, we can now look at what happens inside the brain as we process information, make decisions and respond to others.

It’s important to emphasize that our brain isn’t similar to a computer. Author and neuroscientist Richard Restak, MD, puts it this way:

•  “We are not thinking machines, we are feeling machines that think.” (The Secret Life of the Brain)
•  “Your brain is not a logic machine. As it turns out, emotions and feelings about something or someone occur before you’ve made any attempt at conscious evaluation.” (Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot)

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who gets things done through people. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Leadership Secrets to Effective Execution – Three Keys to Turn Strategy Into Action

Are you working in an organization which values leaders capable of translating your strategy into action? Are the leaders in your organization focusing on putting the right resources in place to achieve results?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “What characteristics are necessary to stay in focus?” Exceptional leaders relentlessly focus on execution and hold people accountable for results.

Are you focused on creating intended outcomes? How effective are you at implementing your strategy and aligning people with goals? Are you passionate about focusing on achievable goals at work that emotionally engage your people?

Three Keys to Effective Execution

Here are three recommended keys to translating strategy into action, from Melissa Raffoni, “Three Keys to Effective Execution” (Harvard Management Update, Feb. 2003).

1.  Maintain your focus. What characteristics are necessary to stay in focus? You can’t go wrong if you think about maintaining a realistic attitude, simplicity and clarity. How realistic are your plans given your resources? How realistic is this plan given the marketplace and the target customers?

The strategy must be as simple as possible. Usually only a few goals can be pursued effectively at any time. Simple, clear objectives that are commonly understood throughout the organization are best. Distilling strategy to its essentials can deepen employees’ understanding.

2.  Develop tracking systems that facilitate problem solving. Develop measures not only for planning but for the execution phase as well. Do your measures really tell you whether you’ve accomplished the objective? Does the tracking system get to the heart of the problem you’re trying to fix? The right measures help make expectations clear.

Don’t let the data get in the way of discussing why things aren’t working. Facing reality makes the difference. It is up to the leader to see that meaningful conversations take place after all the numbers are reported.

3.  Set up formal reviews. Successful execution of plans means continual reviews. Meetings should track objectives and variances with a critical eye towards corrective action.

People and resources should be a top priority at review sessions. The right people need to be in the right roles. This means continual evaluation.

Resources must be in place to execute successfully. Do your people have what they need? Managers who excel in execution rely on dashboard tools or summary documents to track resources and objectives. Some firms use quarterly action booklets that list major objectives, key actions, resources and dates. The goal is to balance simplicity with thoroughness. You must get a clear picture of the primary initiatives, the key metrics they are impacting, and who is accountable for each, in order to have a true measure of your progress.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who translates strategy into execution. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Leadership Secrets for Relentless Execution – The Leader’s 7 Essential Behaviors

Are you working in an organization which values relentless execution by leaders? Are the leaders in your organization focusing on the building blocks of execution to achieve results?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Do I honestly know myself, my people and the business?” Inspiring leaders execute and hold people accountable for results.

Are you focused on getting things done? How effective are you at implementing your strategy through others and aligning people with goals? Are you enthusiastic about establishing big goals at work that emotionally engage your people?

The Leader’s 7 Essential Behaviors

What exactly does a leader in charge of execution do? How does she or he keep from being a micromanager, caught up in the details of running the business? There are seven essential behaviors that form the building blocks of execution:

1.  Know your people and your business
2.  Insist on realism
3.  Set clear goals and priorities
4.  Follow through
5.  Reward the doers
6.  Expand people’s capabilities
7.  Know yourself

Most executives and managers don’t understand the “discipline” of execution. It is not simply a matter of trying harder or paying more attention to details. Execution involves a specific set of core processes built on a foundation of leadership behaviors; it’s a culture unto itself.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who relentlessly focuses on execution. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Leadership Secrets for Execution – Execution Is the Main Job

Are you working in an organization which values execution by leaders at all levels? Are the leaders in your organization relentlessly focused on achieving sustainable results?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself in the present moment is “Are we honestly focusing on surfacing the realities of the business?” Extraordinary leaders execute and hold people accountable for results.

Are you focused on reality and getting things done? How effective are you at meshing your strategy with reality and aligning people with goals? Are you passionate about achieving goals at work that emotionally engage your people?

Execution Is the Main Job

The heart of execution lies in three core processes: the people process, the strategy process and the operations process. 

Leaders often bristle when they are told they have to run the three core processes themselves. “You’re telling me to micromanage my people, and I don’t do that.” Micromanaging is a big mistake because it diminishes people’s self-confidence, saps their initiative and stifles their ability to think for themselves.

But there’s an enormous difference between leading an organization and presiding over it. The leader who boasts of a hands-off style or puts faith in empowerment is not dealing with the issues of the day. He or she is not confronting the people responsible for poor performance, or searching for problems to solve and then making sure they get solved.

Leaders – at all levels – must become passionately engaged in the organization, recognizing that execution is their main job. Putting the right people in the right jobs and ensuring that rewards and recognition reinforce performance are essential.

According to Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy in their book Execution (2002), leaders must build and sustain a “social operating system,” involving continuous review meetings that make up the day-to-day execution management and that link performance and rewards. Review meetings provide the framework needed to create common ways of thinking, behaving and doing.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who focuses on relentless execution. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Leadership Secrets for Execution – People, Strategy & Operations

Are you working in an organization which values execution by leaders at all levels? Are the leaders in your organization relentlessly focused on achieving significant results?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself in the present moment is “Are we honestly surfacing the realities of the business?” Extraordinary leaders execute and hold people accountable for results.

Are you focused on reality and getting things done? How effective are you at meshing your strategy with reality and aligning people with goals? Are you passionate about achieving goals at work that emotionally engage your people?

3 Core Processes:

People, Strategy & Operations

The heart of execution lies in the three core processes: the people process, the strategy process and the operations process.  Every business uses these processes in one form or another. The three core processes of people, strategy and operations are familiar to practitioners of the Balanced Scorecard and the Strategy-Focused Organization management approaches.

In a study of winning companies that spanned more than ten years, professors William Joyce and Nitin Nohria found that there were four primary management practices that directly correlate with superior corporate performance, as measured by total return to shareholders. Winning companies achieve excellence in all four of these primary practices: execution, strategy, culture and structure (What Really Works, 2003).

However, more often than not, these three core processes stand apart from one another like silos. Typically, the CEO and his senior leadership team allot less than half a day each year to review the plans – people, strategy, and operations. Typically, too, the reviews are not particularly interactive. People sit passively and watch PowerPoint presentations.

They don’t debate, and as a result often they get few useful outcomes. People leave with no commitments to the action plans they’ve helped create. This is a formula for failure. What is needed is:
•  Robust dialogue to surface the realities of the business
•  Accountability for results – discussed openly and agreed to by those responsible for getting things done
•  Rewards for the best performers
•  Follow-through to ensure that progress tracks to the plans

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader known for relentless execution. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching Secrets to Creating an Execution Culture – A Leader’s Most Important Job

Are you working in an organization which values execution by leaders at all levels? Are the leaders in your organization relentlessly focused on achieving results?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself in the present moment is “Which people will do the job– and how will they be judged and held accountable?” You need to deliver on your promises and hold people accountable to successfully achieve remarkable results.

Are you focused on reality and getting things through people? How effective are you at meshing strategy with reality, aligning people with goals, and achieving the results promised? Are you energized by achieving goals at work that emotionally fire up your people with meaning and purpose?

 “Execution is the great unaddressed issue in the business world today. Its absence is the single biggest obstacle to success and the cause of most of the disappointments that are mistakenly attributed to other causes.” ― Ram Charan, author of What the CEO Wants You to Know and Boards that Work.

Leaders make big promises… and then there are big gaps in what their organizations actually deliver. They have problems with accountability– people aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do.

Execution is not just something that does or doesn’t get done. Execution is a culture with specific set of behaviors and techniques that companies need to master in order to have competitive advantage.

Execution is not only the biggest issue facing business today, it is something nobody has explained satisfactorily. Execution is not just tactic – it is a discipline and a system. It has to be built into a company’s strategy, its goals, and its culture. And the leader of the organization must be deeply engaged in it.

“Many people regard execution as detail work that’s beneath the dignity of a business leader. That’s wrong … it’s a leader’s most important job.” ― Larry Bossidy, former chairman and CEO, Honeywell International

According to Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy in their book Execution (2002), a lack of focus on the discipline of execution is the main reason companies fall short on their promises. It explains the gap between what leaders want and what they deliver.

It is a system of getting things done through questioning, analysis and follow-through. It is a discipline for meshing strategy with reality, aligning people with goals, and achieving the results promised.

It should be a central part of a company’s strategy and goals and the most important job of any leader. It requires a comprehensive understanding of the business, its people, and its environment. An execution culture links the three core processes of any business – the people process, the strategy, and the operating plan – together to get things done on time.

The execution phase forces the leaders to translate the broad-brush conceptual understanding of the company’s strategy into an action plan for how it will all happen: who will do what in which sequence, how long those tasks will take, how much will they cost, and how they will affect subsequent activities.

Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing “what, how, and why”, of questioning, tenaciously following through, and of ensuring accountability. In its most fundamental sense, execution is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it. Most companies do not face reality very well. That is the basic reason they can’t execute.

Execution Questions

• Which people will do the job– and how will they be judged and held accountable?

• What human, technical, production and financial resources are needed to execute the strategy? 

• Will the organization have the resources it needs two years out, when the strategy goes to the next level?

• Does the strategy deliver the earnings required for success?

• Can it be broken down into doable initiatives?

People engaged in the processes argue these questions, search out reality and reach specific and practical conclusions. Everybody agrees about their responsibilities for getting things done, and everybody commits to those responsibilities.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a more execution focused leader. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching Secrets to Generate New Ideas - Creating an Innovation Idea Factory

Are you working in an organization which values innovation by leaders at all levels? Are the leaders in your organization focused on purposeful work?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself in the present moment is “Am I diligent, persistent, and committed to achieving extraordinary results?” You need to have faith in your own inventiveness and encourage the new ideas of others at work to successfully achieve remarkable results.

Are you open to creative thinking or typically critical of new ideas? How effective are you at encouraging the exploration of new ideas? Are you energized by creating a climate of innovation at work fueled by meaning, purpose, and a creative spirit?

Creating an Idea Factory: Lessons from Edison

Perhaps the greatest creation of Thomas Edison may have been his invention factory. His Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory was the world’s first R&D facility. He built it for the “rapid and cheap development of an invention” and delivered on his promise of “a minor invention every ten days and a big thing every six months or so.” In six years of operation, it generated more than 400 patents.

Rather than focusing on one invention, one field of expertise, or one market, Edison created a setting that enabled his inventors to move easily in and out of separate pools of knowledge, to keep learning new ideas and to use old ideas in novel situations.

They used old ideas and materials in new ways. The phonograph blended elements from past work on telegraphs, telephones, and electric motors.

In 1820, H.C. Oersted, a Dane, discovered that a wire carrying an electric current was surrounded by a magnetic field. In 1825, W. Strugeon, an Englishman, wound a live wire around an iron bar and created an electromagnet. In 1859, H. van Helmholtz, a German, discovered he could make piano strings vibrate by singing to them. Later L. Scott, a Frenchman, attached a thin stick to a membrane; when he spoke to the membrane, the other end of the stick would trace a record of his voice sounds on a piece of smoked glass. Then, in 1874, a Scotsman from Canada, working in Cambridge MA, put these elements into one instrument. The instrument was the telephone and the man was Alexander Graham Bell. The only thing Bell contributed was a fresh synthesis; there was no new discovery.

In innovation there is talent, there is ingenuity, and there is knowledge. But in the end, innovation requires hard, focused and purposeful work. If diligence, persistence and commitment are lacking, then no amount of talent, ingenuity or knowledge will produce results.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a more innovative and creative leader. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and creativity, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching Secrets to Being More Creative – Negativity Is the Enemy of Creativity

Are you working in an organization which values releasing the creativity of leaders at all levels? Are the leaders in your organization optimistic and encouraging regarding people contributing fresh ideas?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself in the present moment is “Can I suspend judgment and allow new ideas to flow and flourish?” You need to have faith in your own creativity and encourage the fresh ideas of others at work to successfully achieve desired results.

Are you open to creative thinking or overly critical of new ideas? How effective are you at encouraging creativity? Are you passionate about creating a climate of innovation at work fueled by meaning, purpose, and a creative spirit?

Negative self-judgment is compounded when new ideas in the workplace are systematically criticized. There is often a belief in the workplace that having a sharp critical eye is preferred by managers and leaders. Such a negative bias can kill creativity.

Michael Ray is a Stanford professor who teaches creative entrepreneurs through his class “Personal Creativity in Business”.  According to Ray, there are five qualities of creativity:

1.  intuition
2.  will
3.  joy
4.  strength
5.  compassion

Those qualities are drawn out of people by four tools:

1.  faith in your own creativity
2.  absence of judgment
3.  precise observation
4.  penetrating questions

“Everything in the world already exists; whatever seems new is only something old rearranged.”                 ― Max de Pree

The paradox of success is that when things are going well there’s no need to change. Innovation needs to begin before a need is felt. Customer or client complaints when viewed objectively and not defensively can point to areas where change is needed.

Cognitive psychologists have shown that the biggest hurdle to solving problems often isn’t ignorance - it’s access to the right information at the right time. Information sharing within big organizations is not easy due to geographic distances, political squabbles, internal competition and bad incentive systems that hinder the spread of ideas.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a more innovative and creative leader. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and creativity, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching Secrets to Creativity - Meaning is the Key to Engaging Creativity

Are you working in an organization that values creativity and innovation? Are the leaders in your organization open to everyone discovering meaning in their work?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself in the present moment is “What is my core identity and how can I align who I am with being fully engaged in meaningful work?” You need to know who you are to successfully achieve desired results.

Do you know your core identity? How effective are you at encouraging creativity? Are you passionate about the work you do fueled by meaning, purpose, and a creative spirit?

Meaning Is the Key to Engaging Creativity

Whenever someone has a burst of creativity, it is because they’ve spent time thinking over some problem or situation that has meaning for them. They have become immersed and totally engaged. If we want people to be innovative, we must discover what is important to them, and we must engage them in meaningful issues.

Michael Ray is a Stanford professor who has led some of Silicon Valley’s most creative entrepreneurs through his class “Personal Creativity in Business” for the past 21 years. Underlying his teaching on creativity is a search for two fundamental questions:

1.  Who is my self?
2.  What is my work?

Ray says you can’t know what or how you want to create until you know who you are and what you hope to do with your life. He believes that creativity exists within everyone. When people can’t tap into their creativity it’s because of an internal “voice of judgment” which is often heavily influenced by society, employers and parents.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a more innovative and creative leader. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and creativity, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.