Power of Hindsight

It is likely that you can recall past actions that would make you wince and utter the words “I wish I hadn't...”

These can include comments you made on Facebook, arguments you had to win or promises you failed to keep, no matter what the cost and who may have been hurt in the process.

These may not have been your finest moments, but you shouldn’t dismiss them because incidents like these give people an opportunity to consciously decide whether they will commit the same mistake again.

Besides the small number of incidents you would like to forget, there are no doubt many more that you can look back on with a sense of achievement, satisfaction and pride.

The milestones and achievements you set as goals and achieved with tenacity, persistence and good humour. The people whose lives you touched in positive and supportive ways without even knowing it at the time, and the creative, high-value solutions you provided for your clients and customers in ways that made them feel both valued and valuable.

You should also take a moment to consider the small things that occur on a daily basis you can learn from to set yourself up for a positive future.

Consider some of the things that held you back during the year and made life harder than it probably needed to be. What can you do to change these?

Think too about the small steps and consistent actions you can do daily to help move you towards your goals in positive, enjoyable ways. How can you incorporate these into your everyday life?

Looking back is a powerful tool to help you move forward only if you do so objectively. The limited image you get in a rear-view mirror is a great reminder that if you allow yourself to dwell on the past, you are likely to stall.

Avoid going over the events in detail and instead ask yourself: “Did I act with integrity?”

When you are clear about what you stand for and what is negotiable and non-negotiable, deciding how to act and behave in the future becomes easy.

Acting in line with your values and with integrity helps build and maintain whatever reputation you may have and influence how you think about yourself and how others perceive you.

It can also help you to stand out for all the right reasons which can set you apart from others and give you a truly competitive edge.

Given a choice, most people would rather associate and engage with people who act with integrity than someone with questionable ethics.

Being clear about what is and what isn’t acceptable to you following a mental review of the year can help you keep things in perspective. It will enable you to move your life forward without any negative “baggage”.

When looking back, acknowledge and make a mental note of those events you would rather not repeat and make a commitment to live up to your standards from now.

Article by Hannah Samuel, an international speaker with Training Edge International and an award-winning speaker, columnist and author. She speaks, writes and mentors worldwide on issues such as reputation, trust and integrity. 

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Traits of Super Salesmen

Over the years, chief executive officers and sales managers have asked me what characteristics they should look for in identifying potential top-performing salesmen. Recent research has reinforced my views on the top five.

Visible trustworthiness

Trust is top of mind for customers since the Global Financial Crisis exposed many top companies’ ethics as seriously deficient.

It is not good enough, however, just to be trustworthy — you need to demonstrate it as part of your first impression. Steve W. Martin, who teaches sales strategy at University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, surveyed the personality traits of top performing salesmen and found that 91 per cent of top salesmen had medium to high scores in modesty and humility.

And, remember, this is in America, which — unfairly or not — is credited with creating the egotistical, fast-talking, in-your-face salesman.

The salesman who is successful in the long term has rock-solid ethics which guide all his dealings. This gives him a reputation that creates genuine client loyalty and allows him to push the boundaries in a competitive world without ever crossing the line.

Happiness

As psychologist Shawn Achor showed in his recent book The Happiness Advantage, salesmen are not so much happy because they are successful as they are successful because they are happy.

It makes sense, really, that happy people are nicer to be around and, so, you would expect them to sell more. But it is more than that. Top salesmen’s fundamental happiness gives them a “high bounce factor” — they bounce back better after failure or rejection.

Curiosity

Once a salesman loses that, you know his best is behind him. Curiosity is what creates the contagious enthusiasm that can easily sour into toxic cynicism.

Curiosity is what causes us to venture beyond the comfort zone. It is what allows us to see the bewildering array of new technology in products, and ways of connecting with our clients, as opportunities not threats.

Curiosity keeps us young. Once you have lost your sense of wonder, you have lost the ability to “wow” a customer.

Strategic thinking

Top salesmen saw beyond the features — even the benefits — and realised there were more important factors likely to influence the sale.

One of these was the systemic fit.  Most people operate in a system that is so powerful that any new addition must fit into it.  Now, this seems obvious in a business environment; but it is just as relevant in the personal sphere.

Years ago, I used to train salesmen who sold upmarket sound equipment. 

Mostly, this involved selling to a couple, as it was a significant investment.

When it came to the largest, most expensive part of the system — the speakers — the temptation for the salesman was to talk (mostly to the male) about the quality of the sound.

I advised against this, suggesting that the effort should go into checking (generally with the female partner) that the speakers came in a finish that was compatible with the existing décor.  No matter how good the speakers sounded, if they didn’t fit into the home “system”, the purchase would never happen.

Smart salesmen realise that what will derail their sale will often have nothing to do with them, their company, their product or their price — but with some other factor. I have lost sales to transfers, inter-departmental rivalry, divorce and long-standing personal vendettas.

Not as friendly as most

This is counter-intuitive, because you would expect the friendliest salesman to attract and retain the most customers.

Yet it makes sense when you realise what is every sales manager’s constant burden: Most salesmen would rather spend time with the clients they like rather than those with the most potential.

Steve W. Martin’s research showed that top salesmen were, on average, less gregarious than some of their counterparts. Of course they are friendly, but they don’t fall into the trap that many salesmen do of trying to become the client’s “best friend” — compromising their influence and setting themselves up as a target of manipulative clients.

Article by Kevin Ryan, an international speaker, workshop leader and author with Training Edge International. 

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In Tune With Your Emotions

In the past two decades, emotional intelligence or EQ has been recognised as an integral part of every aspect of life including leadership, teamwork, and human capital development.

With the world becoming more integrated, leaders have little choice but to help those under their tutelage to realise their fullest potential by using emotional intelligence.

Little wonder that Mr John Lim, the chairman of Singapore Institute of Directors (SID), thinks that qualifications alone are insufficient to make someone a good independent director. He believes that “whether you make good independent directors depends also on the commitment you make, the 

EQ that you have — IQ itself may not be enough — and the strength of character.”

In the book, Primal Leadership: Realising The Power Of Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman, who promulgated the concept of emotional intelligence, says: “Great leaders move us. They ignite our passion and inspire the best in us. When we try to explain why they are so effective, we speak of strategy, vision, or powerful ideas.

“But the reality is much more primal: Great leadership works through the emotions. Even if they get everything else just right, if leaders fail in this primal task of driving emotions in the right direction, nothing they do will work as well as it could or should.”

For any organisation to succeed in achieving its goals, consideration for human factors will be of prime importance.

In his book EQ And Leadership In Asia, Sebastien Henry suggests that Asian culture is naturally inclined towards emotional intelligence, in particular, he says.

“Asian thinking has developed an art of dealing with paradoxes that Western thinking has just started to integrate and appreciate. Obviously, the art of handling paradoxes was not pursued for the sake of developing emotional intelligence”.

There is a framework developed by Goleman highlighting essential elements of emotional intelligence:

Self-awareness

Emotionally intelligent individuals have a high level of understanding about themselves that helps them to keep their emotions under control.

Self-regulation

When they keep their emotions under control, emotionally intelligent individuals are able to avoid making spurious decisions. In the words of Sebastien Henry, “emotions are like the weather: they are always around, and they always change. It requires some particular skills to handle them”.

Motivation

Emotionally intelligent individuals welcome challenges and embrace changes willingly if they are for the betterment of the organisation.

Empathy

Being empathetic is a hallmark of emotionally intelligent individuals, fostering a productive working relationship. Indians, it is sometimes said, have a particular knack for empathy because of their upbringing in a culturally diversified environment.

Social skills

Social skills hold leaders in good stead when it comes to teamwork, especially when encouraging others to work towards a common goal.

Dr Goleman argues that good leaders are people who are in tune with the moods of their followers and have resonant relationships with them. They are literally on the same wavelength as others, in that the actual brain chemistries of leaders and followers change in similar ways during the course of their social interactions.

According to Sunny Verghese, group managing director and chief executive of Olam, driving emotions in the right direction is one of the qualities required by a chief executive officer.

He should have the ability “to combine conceptual and analytical skills with emotional intelligence, that is, the ability to understand himself, his emotions, his ability to control his feelings, postponing gratification”.

In August last year, Time magazine did a cover story on India’s biggest export, which was in reference to CEOs. Egon Zehnder, in a study of S&P 500 companies, found more Indian CEOs than any other nationality except for the Americans.

The discussions, moderated by Shaili Chopra of ET Now, highlighted one of the main reasons why Indian CEOs are doing so well in global companies: the comfort level with diversity, which needs high emotional intelligence.

Obviously, Asian leaders seem to have achieved success combining EQ and leadership by effectively leveraging on the Asian cultural strengths. It could now evolve as best practices for other corporate leaders to emulate when they take up leadership in the Asian region.

Article by Maler Vilee, who has over 14 years of invaluable working experience in coaching, mentoring and leadership development with Training Edge International

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What Women Want

Today, people who join organisations seek engaging leadership. They demand that their leaders be competent, personable and charismatic. They want to be inspired.

But additionally, they want to be part of something significant, an endeavour greater than they could achieve by themselves. These demands place significant responsibility on their leaders.

Do women have different expectations of leadership than men? What do women perceive as successful leadership?

A sound flow of information and knowledge are essential for leaders to maintain their position and to sustain their teams.

Unfortunately, in the traditional approach, the leader’s behaviour is governed by fear of wayward behaviour of employees that may damage the company or undermine the leader. Consequently, there is a lack of trust and respect.

Communication is purely transactional. There is little true leadership operating in this model — it is a pure management approach designed to control the employees.

Being authentic is an essential leadership characteristic. Unfortunately, women in leadership positions for the first time may model behaviours that are not naturally their own. They tend to imitate other leaders, often men whom they perceive as strong and decisive and, consequently, they lack authenticity.

Being real as a leader is essential if the leader is to gain respect and influence.

Building communities

Conversely, leadership should be about community building. If leadership is about influence, then leaders must engage with their teams as a community that shares knowledge and information because to influence others, the leader needs to share information and knowledge to engage and inspire action.

Authentic leaders respect employees’ rights to information and knowledge. They build communities that appoint knowledge gathering as a community responsibility, which leads to greater productivity.

When women lead

Women tend to be more supportive of leadership styles that build and encourage community, cooperation and collaboration.

In a 2007 McKinsey study, it was identified that companies with three or more women in senior management roles performed better than companies that had no women in these functions.

Companies with women in senior roles outperformed their sectors in terms of return on equity, operating result and stock price growth. Women who use community-building leadership styles tend to prize the development of cooperation and collaboration ahead of short-term gains.

Therefore, it can be said that female leaders who build community tend to have sustainable achievements over time.

Although women may tend to favour community-building leadership approaches, it does not explain why their teams tend to be high performing and have sustainable achievements over time.

Cooperative effort

The secret is not so much the leader as the behaviours of the employees. A community by its nature shares and cooperates. Certain conditions are set in action when individuals choose to cooperate rather than compete.

Pruitt and Kimmel (1977), writing a paper on experimental gaming, identified that when a goal of mutual cooperation exists and there is a clear expectation that people will cooperate, cooperation is successful.

Essentially, cooperation occurs because people can justify to themselves that cooperation is a good thing and the likelihood of anyone taking a free ride is low.

Consequently, leaders who encourage cooperative effort in their teams are likely to establish the foundational conditions necessary for work community cooperation to occur.

Research has demonstrated the advantages of cooperative behaviour among co-workers, particularly in the advancement of knowledge and learning.

Learning in teams improves information retention as the interaction between co-workers regarding the application of the information creates more associations with current knowledge than can be done alone.

These associations between pieces of information are an important part of the memory creation process.

Additionally, learning cooperatively improves self-confidence as the learning participants recognise and reward each other during the process of discussing the information and its applications.

Finally, cooperative learners build higher-level thinking skills as they discuss and apply the information.

Leaders who encourage community building among their employees and foster cooperative practices are teaching their employees crucial skills in how to work together productively and how to learn faster and more effectively.

 

Article by Karen Nicholson of Training Edge International. She has over 20 years of experience in people management, training and human resource management

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