Walk The Talk Chock full of resources to inspire, motivate, encourage, and challenge you!

Nothing is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood
– Freeman Teague, Jr.

Today’s quote comes to you from The Manager’s Communication Handbook:

A Practical Guide to Build Understanding, Support, and Acceptance

Today’s Topic: The Main Thing

Here are five ways to ensure your employees not only know what your main thing is, but also that they work together to accomplish it.

1. Share your vision of what’s truly important…what you want and need your team to achieve. Don’t just recite the organization’s vision – that’s great for the annual report, but employees need to know what’s in your head. It should be a clear explanation of what your team’s results can and should be…and how you see that happening.
2. Provide regular feedback on how each team member is helping to accomplish the main thing. Do not fall into the “as long as you don’t hear from me you’ll know you’re doing okay” trap. Again, your people need to hear directly from you whether things are going well or not.
3. Show the team that you care. If your group is like most, the question “Does anybody really give a flip about what we do around here?” probably comes up now and then. Everyone needs to feel (and BE) appreciated by his or her leader. In fact, being recognized for one’s efforts and contributions is the number one factor leading to long-term job satisfaction. That’s right…it ranks above money!
4. Identify and eliminate unnecessary activities that either don’t support your main thing or that block the progress and success of your people. Test all of the team’s decisions and activities against the main thing. Then have the courage to stop doing the things that distract the team from accomplishing its top priority.
5. Stay consistent. The leader’s job is to provide consistency in everything he or she does. Your actions must be consistent with your words. The performance reviews you conduct must be consistent with the coaching you have provided along the way; the reward system you have in place must reflect and acknowledge the accomplishment of important team goals.

Today’s lesson comes from Leadership Courage:

Leadership Strategies for Individual and Organizational Success

By David Cottrell and Eric Harvey

The first great gift we can bestow on others is a good example.
– Thomas Morell

Today’s quote comes to you from Leadership Lessons:

Powerful Quotes & Inspiring Messages…for everyone

212° “YESer”

Being a “YESer” doesn’t mean being a “yes man” or “yes woman.” It doesn’t mean going along to get along, or saying yes and meaning “maybe,” “no,” or “over my dead body.” And it doesn’t mean nodding your head up and down incessantly like the toy dog in the back window of an old sedan.

A YESer is someone who is up to the challenge – any challenge; someone willing to try – to give it their best shot. It’s someone who can quickly overcome doubt and apprehension, then move forward; someone who sees as much value (or more) in the effort as in the results. A YESer is someone who wants to be on the playing field rather than sitting in the spectator section. And it’s someone who wastes no time on negativity and naysaying.

There are plenty of people willing to tell you why something won’t work, why it can’t be done, why now isn’t the right time, or why they aren’t the right person for the job. In fact, most of the working population is uncomfortable being full-time YESers. And that’s the big reason to be one: It differentiates you, and it brands you with a big VE – Valuable and Employable.

Think about it. Who are the most successful people YOU know (or know of)? Are they “It’ll never work…we can’t do that…this is a pain” types? I seriously doubt it. I’m betting that your success role models are “We can do that…let’s find a way to make it happen…you bet” type people. They’re YESers! And you can join them!

 
Now, turn up the heat…212°

Future Tense: 21 Personal Success Strategies for an

Ever-Changing Business World

Love is blind, but hiring shouldn’t be.
– Unknown

Today’s quote comes to you from Leadership Courage:

Leadership Strategies for Individual and Organizational Success

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
– Mark Twain

Today’s quote comes to you from Start Right…Stay Right:

Every Employee’s Straight-Talk Guide to Job Success

While we all have the ability to positively impact lives, the key is taking the time to open our eyes and notice those around us. Today’s excerpt, taken from Leadership Lessons, will touch your heart. It reminds us that everyone is a leader to someone.

And if you haven’t already, take the time to watch our Leadership Lessons inspirational movie. Your someone is counting on you.

Please pass this along to family, friends and coworkers.

To Your Success,

Eric Harvey

Forget REAL GOOD – Remember FEEL GOOD

Tom Asacker said as leaders we need to “forget real good and remember feel good.” Today, he said, there are 5 billion web pages (25 for every man, woman and child in this country) and 6 million going up every day. There are 89 brands of shampoo at Walgreens! Customers are stressed out from information overload and conflicting information…more and more they are relying on their gut…and their feelings to make decisions.

In fact, he said, it really doesn’t matter how customers feel about you and your business. What makes a difference is how your products make them feel about themselves and their decisions. Every psychologist and smart marketer knows that if a man or woman does something and it feels good, they’ll do it again; if it feels bad they won’t do it.

Far too many companies are focused on the product and not the experience. We need to replace our brain with our heart because that’s often how people make decisions. Studies have proven that the essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action and reason leads to conclusions. What do you want? Do you want action or do you want people to think?

The question you need to ask is, “How am I making my customers feel?” Am I making them compare or care? There’s a big difference. Caring and feelings drive action…the other stuff is just a tool. The bottom line is that the really hard stuff is the soft stuff…It’s the feelings of your employees and customers. That, in the end, is your competitive advantage.

Watch the You Can’t Send a Duck to Eagle School Movie

How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things, but how well we are understood.
– Andrew Grove

Today’s quote comes to you from Nuts’nBolts Leadership:

“How To” Strategies and Practical Tips for Leaders at ALL Levels

Today’s Topic: A Garden of Employees
Think of your employees as orchids, daisies, and weeds. Think of yourself as the gardener whose job it is to nurture them to full bloom.

If you could choose the employees you’d most like to work with every day, would you select:

• Orchid employees, who need you to stick close enough to ensure they get just the right amount of – but not too much – sunlight, water, and humidity (read that: directions, feedback, and praise), or else they’ll wither and die?
• Daisy employees, who can yield voluminous blooms (excellent work) in a wide range of temperatures (situations), but still need you to check in every now and then to make sure they are getting adequate water, sunlight, and circulation (coaching, feedback, and opportunity)?
• Or weed employees, who can fend for themselves in almost any situation, leaving you plenty of time to tend to the needier plants in the garden?

When it’s put to them that way, most managers say they would welcome a garden full of weeds.

Find out how to manage your garden of employees with Way To Grow:

Cultivating the Weeds, Daisies, and Orchids in Your Organization

By Linda Galindo