Category Archives: Quotes

Leadership Qualities 1

Leadership Qualities that Create Great Teams 

Leadership, Quotes, Success

Leadership Qualities: Some teams have a manager but still suffer from a lack of leadership.  What qualities help leaders raise the team standards and increase team success?

Four Leadership Qualities that Create Great Teams

Leaders have many qualities that make them more effective.  For example, a leader with charisma easily draws people to them and creates focus on what these leaders do and say. Leaders who are more intelligent and have greater experience help the team make better decisions.

Here are leadership qualities that you can claim today.

Self-honesty

Not just honesty, but self-honesty.

Self-honesty is about you recognizing and correcting your mistakes.  It’s the honesty to recognize your weaknesses.

It is burying your ego so that you can accept the truths that stand between you and success.

To be successful takes more than overcoming lying, cheating, and stealing.  For that matter, there are successful liars, cheaters, and thieves.

But even successful thieves benefit from honesty about their mistakes and their weaknesses.  Otherwise, they will never become more effective, successful thieves.

Open-mindedness

A closed mind is the wall between ignorance and learning.  It is also a wall between the shared intelligence of the team and the mind of a boss.

Of all the leadership qualities, open-mindedness might be the most important quality for creative, responsive teams.

Emotional Intelligence

First, learn to understand ourselves. Then we can begin to understand others.

Emotional Intelligence (sometimes abbreviated “EI” or referred to as Emotional Quotient “EQ”) is the ability to understand our own emotions as well as the emotions of other people.

People who have emotional intelligence know how to read people.  They have an intuitive sense of why people do things and how to motivate people to do things. With a combined understanding of themselves as well as an understanding of others, these leaders can make decisions and take action with greater intelligence.

Ability to Grow

A final quality in this discussion is the ability to grow.

Leaders who continue to grow become a source of continuous growth for the team.  Developing knowledge and skills, these leaders bring greater value to teams and increase the value of these teams to the organization. Effective new as well as tried methods, when introduced to the team, create both a greater understanding as well as more efficient ways of using new methods.

Leaders who develop the quality of continued growth can clear the clutter of methods that reduce the effectiveness of a team. Just knowing to evaluate procedures as time passes makes for greater effectiveness.

Teams that grow make the leap from short-term survival to long-term success.

Meeting Agendas

Meeting Agendas: Gaining Control Through Preparation

Interviewing, Job Skills, Leadership, Quotes, Success

Meeting Agendas can empower you to set and control the purpose of a meeting as well as the agreements reached during the meeting.

Are you tired of meetings that accomplish nothing? These lessons from sales training might help.

Case Study

During lunch, a field sales manager of a major consumer goods company told me about an experience he had had during a day in the field with his company’s chief executive officer. He said that he went through the day will a well-planned series of meetings. Each meeting was important to the success of the company’s brands. And he felt that his day was a success.

However, the CEO showed him how he could have made each meeting more successful by entering the meeting with a prepared agenda.  He pointed to instances of the meetings getting off track and failing to obtain commitments that were there for the asking.

Preparation for a Sales Call

In my training at a major consumer products company, I learned how to plan a sales call. The night before, I would create a presentation for each call. The presentation included the objective of the call, the benefits to the buyer, and the quantities of products I planned to sell. Interwoven into the agenda were possible objections I might anticipate from the buyer and how I would handle them.

A Status Board as a Meeting Agenda

When I entered the recruiting industry, I first worked for a search firm that had a former pharmaceutical industry executive as CEO.  The only thing that he asked of us recruiters is that we sit down at the beginning of every day and go over a single sheet that contained a list of search assignments and prospects, code the status of the assignments, and update that sheet every day. From there he asked to see a copy of the sheet at the end of every week.

Each morning, we recruiters met to review our “Status Boards,” which were the agenda for the meeting.

In having us create this simple “Status Board,” the CEO established more than a plan. He created an agenda for our daily activity. We not only had to present the names of the hiring companies and the name of the applicants; we had to state our progress in the process. For potential candidates, we put no number after their name. If a candidate agreed to an interview with a company, we put a “1” beside the name of that candidate. When we had a candidate scheduled for an interview, we put a “2” beside the applicant’s name. A “3” meant that the candidate had an offer.  A “4” meant the candidate had accepted the offer.

What this CEO accomplished was to require each recruiter to know the details and progress of each search assignment. He called this sheet a “Status Board.” Implicit in this activity is that this CEO laid out the details of an agenda that kept us recruiters on track and kept him informed.

Meeting Agendas Across all Industries.

So began my practice of having an agenda for my daily activities.  I add to my agenda as new events arise. Again, this agenda is more detailed than scheduling a task. The agenda contains the objective, progress, and completion of the task.

A second example, is how I manage visit to the doctor’s office.  I state the purpose of the visit. Then I add a list of questions I plan to ask. I include a section for next steps. This simple method makes my appointments more meaningful, and I don’t leave the meeting with regrets for not asking the right questions or frustration on over not understanding the next steps.  Therefore, I can then take the steps for more successful action for my health.

Recruiters

Recruiters: What Job Seekers Need to Know

Quotes, Recruiters, Success

Recruiters: If you are in a job search, you may find it helpful to understand the relationships of recruiters, hiring companies, and job seekers.

As a recruiter, I contracted with over a hundred companies to fill their vacancies. I have friends who are recruiters.  My broader understanding of the types of firms started when I began my career with a company that had two departments: one for search and one for applicant placements. This article will help you understand recruiters and perhaps the best way to work with recruiters effectively.

Recruiters

Hiring companies contract with recruiters to find applicants that are often not on the market. If you are a working with recruiter, you are valuable to that recruiter.  The recruiter will not charge you a fee. The hiring company pays the recruiter.

This distinction over fee payments is one of the differences between recruiters and some placement agencies.

A recruiter does not find jobs for people. Instead they find people for jobs. Some people call recruiters “headhunters,” because they hunt for people to fill positions for the hiring companies.

Placement Agencies

These agencies often work to find jobs for job seekers. In some cases, employment agencies may charge the applicant a fee. The successful employment agencies have a strong network in a local market. Although employment agencies may recruit candidates for a specific job, these agencies are typically working with job seekers who have come to the agency’s office and completed an application.

Contingency Recruiter or Retained Recruiter

Both contingency recruiters and retained recruiters have a contract with the hiring company.  Also, both seek to find people for jobs.  The difference is that a contingency recruiter makes no money until a hire is made. On the other hand, retained recruiters receive scheduled payments as they work on the search.  Additionally, both types, myself included, are listed in national directories of professional recruiters.

You and the Recruiter

Recruiters get on phones and call people. They may publish job listings on their websites. My initial use of this website was to promote my recruiting efforts. Most recruiters specialize in searching for specific types of jobs.

If you have the skills that match a recruiter’s specialty, you might find this recruiter a valuable asset, because he or she will often have a number of jobs that fit your background.

The Limitations of Recruiters

I have a separate article on why you might not want to work with a recruiter.  You should be aware that recruiters are working to serve their own interests to fill jobs quickly.  These recruiters may not refer you to companies where they already have successful candidates in progress.

Winning Traits

Winning Traits: Empower Yourself for Success

Leadership, Quotes, Success

Winning Traits: What traits do successful people have that empower them for success?  Are they traits that you can develop?

Horrible things happen to all of us.  Things beyond our control.  But developing winning traits can change the questions we ask when we meet challenges. We stop asking, “Why me?”  Instead, we ask, “What steps can I take today to make things better?” ~ www.jaywren.com

What is Self-Empowerment and How Can We Achieve it?

Self-empowerment is taking control of your behavior to reach your goals and achieve success.  This trait empowers us to do the things that we can do.  Furthermore, it enables us to recognize our weakness and turn them into strengths.

1. Hustle

The people who hustle move ahead of the competition. They are the ones who recover the fumble, catch the rebound, or bring their product to market before competitors do.

2. Integrity

There are many quotes about integrity.  Usually these quotes look something like this:  Integrity is what you do when nobody’s watching.  However, integrity is a quality that builds success whether people are watching or not.

People without integrity lie in public, con people into choices, break their commitments.  They lack loyalty, fairness, decency.  No one trusts people who don’t have integrity.

On the other hand, people with integrity do none of these things. Nor do they have any of those bad qualities.  Additionally, people trust people who have integrity.

3. Self-Honesty

There are two types of honesty.  Cash register honesty is one.  Certainly, cash register is important for building trust and staying out of jail.  However, self-honesty enables people to see their shortcomings.  More importantly, self-honesty enables people to correct their mistakes and strengthen their weaknesses.

To have self-honesty, we must be open-minded and have a willingness to change.

4. Absolute Ability to Set Priorities

Anyone can make a list of things to do.  However, a simple to-do list is not a list of priorities.  Successful people must have the ability to know the difference between the things that they should do today from the things that must do today.

5. The Ability to Act

Do not confuse motion with action.  A swivel chair has motion but it is not going anywhere.   People who move into action create self-empowerment to reach their goals.

6. Relentlessness

People who are relentless don’t give up on themselves or their success.  Through effort and intelligence, they move past obstacles to achieve their goals.  I write two to three blog posts a week.  Sometimes, I don’t feel like writing.  Other times, I can’t think of ideas for writing.  However, I have a relentless attitude to continue to read and grow and find powerful ideas to share on my blog.

Career Plan

Career Plan: Tailored and Flexible for Your Success

Quotes

Picking A Career

In picking a career, start with an understanding of what you want to do and what you need to do to have that type of career. First, answer these questions.

    1. What Do You Want to Do?
    2. How Important is Income?
    3. How Well Do You Tolerate Risk?
    4. Where Do You Want to Live?
    5. What Education Do You Need?
    6. What Experience Do You Need?
    7. How Do You Relate to Other People?
    8. Should You Take an Aptitude Test?
    9. Who Hires People Who Match Your Goals and Abilities?

Be Detailed and Specific in Your Answers

Write down your answers to these questions.  Compare one against the other in terms of importance.  Reshuffle the order to match your priorities. Be as specific as possible.  For example, preferences on location can range from one neighborhood to one city to anywhere across the country. Write down whether you want to work from home or work in a place outside of your home.  Write down whether you want to work for yourself or for someone else. Notice how your interests in one of these options can limit or increase your opportunity in others.

Grow and Stay Flexible to Adjust Your Career Plan to Match Changing Conditions

You should use this process or a similar process every time you evaluate the progress of your career. A career is a process of continuous growth.

For example, as a recruiter, I started with a file card system. Additionally, I used postal mail. Over time, I added a fax to my office. Then I converted my file card system to a computer contact manager system.  Email replaced postal mail. Instead of making calls to reach people, I emailed people who were in meetings and seldom could get to their phone.

In Conclusion

Remain curious. Accept the realities of an ever-changing world of business.  You might need to return to college or obtain new credentials or certifications.  Continue to read to stay current with events of the day.  Strengthen your professional skills to become more effective in working with other people and to grow into greater responsibility.

Image Marketing

Image Marketing: How to Leverage Social Media for Success

Quotes

Image Marketing: High-powered social media and mass media create an image of how they want you to see them. They are consistent with their message and their image creates loyalty among their followers.

Align Your Image with a Cause

More than establishing a theme for your social media, create a cause: political, charitable, social, career, personal growth, and educational causes show depth in your message. They help you develop your image with a consistent message.

Caveat: The cause must be consistent with the image you are creating in your marketing theme. Politics, religion, even education can trigger people.  And that is fine as long as the triggers draw the audience you are developing.

Dress for Your Audience

If you follow social media czars, you know that they dress for their audience. Gary Vaynerchuk, author, entrepreneur, best-selling author, social media guru owns a tie, but there aren’t many pictures of him wearing it.  Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wears clothes for his Instagram feed (@therock) and Twitter feed #dwaynejohnson that display the images of the characters he plays in his movies: large, powerful, smiling, and approachable. Nearly always in a gym, he is the sweatiest man on the Internet!

Puncher or Counter Puncher?

On the other hand, are you a counter puncher? Leading political media figures are counter punchers. They take issue with their opposition. Television, radio, and Internet counter punchers are very effective in the political arena. They use anger and fear to trigger intense emotions in their audience.

Image Marketing Needs Consistency

In closing, as you develop your image, choose messages that you believe in. This choice ensures that you can consistently create a message that is genuine. You create faithful followers who identify with your image. Additionally, as you create content, you gain experience and knowledge that makes you more effective in building a credible image.

Toxic Behavior

Toxic Behavior in the Workplace: Your Options

Quotes

Toxic Behavior: Sometimes companies develop a culture based on conflict and anger. The problem often starts at the top and works its way down and throughout an organization.

In other cases, companies hire individuals with a toxic personality.  These people survive based on their performance and, at times, manage well up within the organization. They know the politics of relationships.  They hide their toxic behavior from their supervisors.  However, their coworkers and the people who work for them suffer.

Despite your best efforts, you may never be able to get along with these people.  They have a critical, judgmental, negative personality.

The Pain of Toxic Behavior

Dreading having to work around toxic people is normal.  You are not alone. Additionally, don’t blame yourself for their behavior.  Blaming yourself can keep you in toxic relationships. Furthermore, no matter how well you attempt to adjust to accommodate these people, truly toxic people will not adjust to your efforts to accommodate them.

During the jobs I had in college, my service in the military, and my career in consumer products, I had over a dozen supervisors. Additionally, I have worked with dozens upon dozens of coworkers and clients.

For the most part, I have worked with good people. On the other hand, I have worked for and with some very difficult people.  In most cases, I found that there was very little I could do to change the nature of my relationship with these difficult people.  However, in some cases, I did find ways to improve relationships with even the most difficult people.

The Causes

In some cases, the relationship problems result from simple differences between two people.  For example, you and the person with whom you have difficulties may simply have different ways of approaching work.  In other instances, you may have a different way of seeing the world. You may have different values in your life and your work. A simple conflict in values can create conflicts and can sour relationships.

Abusive Behavior and Discrimination

Beyond the problem of toxic environments, regrettably, abusive behavior and job discrimination exist. Even more regrettable is that some companies ignore the problems and their employees continue to suffer. When you are a victim of abuse or when you are the target of racial, sexual, political, or religious bias, you are dealing with difficult problems.

I recommend that you speak with mentors, professionals in the areas of abuse or discrimination, and perhaps with an attorney.  Biases of race, gender, politics, and religion may seem normal to the person who is biased. People see their unconscious bias as the truth, even as facts. Before you charge at the people who have harmed you, consider the issues for the long-term good of your career.  Remember, you may be dealing with people who just can’t see the truth in things that don’t align with their biases. Again, I recommend that you get the best advice possible before acting.

Document Your Experience

If you are receiving abusive emails or letters from people in you company, save those documents.  If you must reply to those emails, don’t respond out of anger.  Make your reply factual and professional.

Make notes on a private calendar of things that happen to you. Include the date, time, and circumstances.

If your company has human resources or other professionals in place to help you, explore the possibility of discussing the issues with those people. Keep in mind that in toxic cultures the very people who are in place to help you may play roles in perpetuating the problem. Develop a relationship with these people.  Get to know them.  Try to learn of other issues they have resolved within the company.

Confrontation

You have personal boundaries.  Everyone does. Additionally, you owe it to yourself to protect those boundaries.  When possible, let people know when they are crossing those boundaries.

You should be firm but not act angry. Anger, in many cases, can only make matters worse.

In confronting the person, select a place and a time that will help you work out your issues.  Perhaps, make an appointment in the person’s office. Select someplace private where you both can be candid and yet feel safe.

Until you work out your issues with the person, whenever possible, simply avoid the person.

Job Change

Workplace Relationships: Accept, Change, or End

If you believe that a job change is the answer, clarify in your mind the symptoms of toxic relationships. Make a list of your personal values. Empower yourself to make a career move that will enrich your life in your workplace relationships.

Furthermore, research as well as possible the people for whom you will be working.  Ask to speak with people who are currently working at the company.  Ask general questions about what they like and don’t like about the company. From these discussions, you may learn a great deal about the culture and the people around whom you will be working.

If the person who will be your supervisor is not in the interview process, ask to meet that person prior to signing on with the company.

Career Planning

Career Planning: Weighing the Decision to Change Jobs

Quotes

Career Planning:  Just because you are unhappy with your current job does not mean that you should get a new one.  There are reasons to stay where you are even though you believe you might be happier somewhere else.

Are You in the Wrong Job?

If you feel unappreciated, are you in the wrong job?  By unappreciated, I mean that you experience these things.

  1. Your turn has come up for promotion, but the promotion goes to less qualified peers.
  2. Your company brings in management from the outside for jobs that should have.
  3. Your peers repeatedly get credit for the work you are doing.
  4. Your boss takes credit for your work.
  5. Your pay raise is smaller than the pay raises everyone else gets.
  6. Everything people say about you is negative.
  7. No one asks you to join in at breaks or after work.
  8. You believe that nothing you do makes a difference.
  9. You feel like an outsider.

Reasons Not to Change

Lost benefits: Companies increase vacation time and other benefits with the length of time people stay at a company.  time.

Marketability: Companies become concerned about hiring people who lack stability in their employment history.  The best employers lower the risk of investing time and money in hiring, onboarding, and training employees who don’t have the ability to stay and grow with a company.

Stress: A job search is stressful.  Furthermore, the first three months you are in a new job, employers are forming an opinion of you. The pressure to perform at once is stressful.

No Guarantees: Changing jobs does not guarantee that you will be happier.  You may find that the next job solves no problems.  You may be rushing from rut to move to another rut.

Additionally, changing jobs often means leaving friends and familiar routines to go to a place where you do not know anyone and where the people, the ways of working, and the culture are completely different.

Career Planning: Weighing the Decision to Change Jobs

Changing jobs might be the best option for you.  You can go to a place where you find greater satisfaction, increased pay, and increased career opportunity.  Nonetheless, weigh the benefits and risk to changing jobs.

 

Interview Tools

Job Search Tools that Can Land the Job You Deserve

Interviewing, Job Search, Quotes

Job Search Tools: Are stuck in your job search?  Perhaps the list of tools in the article will help you land the job you deserve.

Powerful Resume

Powerful Resumes: Are you sending out dozens of resumes and not getting job interviews. You might find the suggestions in my article “Powerful Resumes: The Critical Details for Getting Job Interviews” helpful.

In my “See All Posts” archives, you will find close to thirty articles on how to write a resume that will get you interviews.

Research Tools

Research gives you a critical advantage over people who don’t research companies, contacts, and job opportunities.

Before approaching a company directly, research it thoroughly. How is it structured? Bottler, distributor, direct, or broker sales? Public or private? Do you have a referral to help you get your foot in the door? Who are the key managers for the job you are seeking? To whom do these people report?

I remember driving to the main library in Houston.  This library had the information I needed to identify companies to pursue. With further research, I could learn what types of jobs these company offered and the products and services they produced. I could learn information about the key officers in the company. Often, I could find the addresses to send resumes.

With the Internet, I can get so much more information without leaving my desk.

I can still use the library.  I signed up for a library card. Now I can read library books on line.

With a little bit of effort, I can uncover information about companies to show the recruiter why I am the most qualified person for a job.

Job Search Tools

Read the want ads in the local newspaper, national publications, and especially trade journals. Job search engines and job boards will have job opportunities all over the country.  Become an expert on what is in the job market.

Lay out your goals as specifically as you can but be aware that the more flexible you are in terms of money, location, and opportunity the more opportunities you will have available to you. Understanding your goals will make you more effective in identifying job opportunities.

Recruiters

Types of recruiters: Contingency recruiter or retained recruiter?  Contingency recruiters work under contract for payment and successfully filling a job. A retained recruiter works under a contract that pays the recruiter a retainer fee to initiate a search and complete payment after the new hire starts to work.

Typically, contingency recruiters work on middle management searches.  On the other hand, retained recruiters are conducting searches where the compensation is above $250,000.

In practice, how a recruiter is compensated is not important.  The key information for you to know is whether the recruiter has contracts (contingency or retained) for conducting a search assignment.

Before you call a recruiter, be aware of the limitations that working with a recruiter might place on you. On the other hand, you should know the services that recruiters offer job applicants.

Do reference checks on recruiters. Recruiters are humans. Some you will like. Others you may not like.

Network Building Tools

Start with a list of all the people you believe can help you. These are people you know well enough that they will need no reminder of who you are. From there, make a list of everyone you have met since beginning your career.

In creating your list, include the phone number, email address, and mailing address of each of these people.

Ask for referrals of every person you contact.

From there, begin to use social media to identify people who can help you.

Be Organized

Make a list daily of your contacts, what you discussed what action you have taken and what action needs to be taken.  You might create a status board similar to the one in my article titled “Status Board.”

Headlines

Resume Headlines: What Good are They If No One Reads Your Resume?

Quotes, Recruiters, Resumes

Resume Headlines: Do headlines help or hinder in compelling the recruiter to read your resume?  What you say in the headline makes all the difference.

“Writing headlines is a specialty – there are outstanding writers who will tell you they couldn’t write a headline to save their lives.” – The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership, Bill Walsh

Additionally, my LinkedIn banner looks like this:

There are benefits and risks to using a headline. On one hand, they can raise the number of times your resume appears in keyword searches. Furthermore, an effective headline can increase the number of people who will read your resume.

On the other hand, based on the wording of your headline, a recruiter can decide whether to take time to read your resume or toss it. Additionally, they take up space where concise, compelling wording is critical.

My LinkedIn Headline

For my LinkedIn headline, I chose a title that I have used for over thirty years as a recruiter and combined that title with keywords that describe my services.

The World’s Noblest Headhunter, Business and Career Builder

I had an advantage is selecting this headline.  Over thirty years of experience have demonstrated that to me that the headline is memorable and that people respond to the headline.

Headlines Instead of Objectives or Summaries

A good place to insert the headline is in place of the objective statement or a summary of skills.  I generally don’t recommend stating an objective, with the possible exception of when the objective specific to the job and the company.  For example: Objective: To apply for the project manager position available at ABC company.

Likewise, as I have written elsewhere, stating a summary of experience skills at the opening of a resume is redundant to the content section of the resume. Therefore, I would recommend a resume headline over with an objective or a summary of skills and experience.