Effective Communication in a Fast Moving World

Most people will agree that breakdowns in communication are often the culprit when things go wrong.  The following points are basic "blocking and tackling" reminders for interpersonal communication.  The digital revolution we are living through is changing the way we communicate.  With the speed at which information is now shared and the sheer volume that we encounter each day, communicating effectively is more important than ever.


The first reminder is that communication is a Two-Way street.  Human nature has us far more focused on the outgoing message than what is coming in.  This is exactly the opposite of how we should perceive communication.  The old adage "seek first to understand, then to be understood" rings true here.  The more we know BEFORE we communicate, the more pertinent, concise and effective our message will be.  This will lead to desired results.


Listening


Listening is extremely difficult because your mind is processing information at about 2000 words per minute while those speaking are spitting it out at about 300 to 400 words per minute.  When someone speaks to us our minds jump ahead to finish sentences and thoughts for the speaker.  We begin to formulate an opinion of their point and a response before they have finished speaking.  How many times do you have to repeat yourself because the other party didn't listen to you all the way through.  We have to listen actively and listen well enough to be able to repeat what was just said to us.  As some say, listen empathically so that you truly understand the other person's point of view.


Another factor that works against us is that our favorite sound is our own voice rather than someone else’s  We tend to listen with the intention of responding rather than learning.  Remember, it is the quality of what you say rather than the quantity.  You must listen first in order to deliver quality.
A physiological factor that makes listening difficult is ego.  Face it, we all have a sense of pride.  If we allow someone else’s thoughts change the way we think, we might actually feel like we have lost and they have won.  People are competitive by nature and we must be aware of this tendency.   A great example is like when a person of opposing political beliefs tries to get you to see things their way.  You assume a defensive posture and constantly prepare counter-points to their messages.  Your mind is closed and getting your points across is all you are concerned about. 


How important is listening?  Psychologists say that one of the most basic psychological needs of people is to be understood. People feel understood when you’ve listened to them.  How we can be better listeners?


• Refrain from interrupting—often the tendency when someone brings us a problem…jump right in and start solving.


• If people are talking about their feelings, a response with a solution may back fire. Simply start by  acknowledging that you understand how they feel.


• People really feel understood when you repeat back what they’ve said to you.


• Know you don’t always have to solve their problem (more in personal than business situations) but is very important with angry customers.


• Ask clarifying questions.  This shows interest and that you’re tuned in.


• Use non-verbals, nodding, uh huhs, and so on


• Check for understanding…So what you’re saying is …



Effective Speaking
Non-Verbal 93% of what is communicated is non-verbal.  Be conscious of your tone and even the speak with which you speak.  Matching the tempo of the person you are addressing will actually make them more comfortable and will help them capture your message.  Also, remember the all important action of making eye contact while you speak.  It helps keep the listener engaged and demonstrates integrity of your message.

Additional speaking tips include the following:
• After giving instructions or when teaching especially, ask for a repeat back “To ensure that I said this properly, please tell me the message I conveyed”.  Wording it this way puts the onus of effective communication on you rather than them.  Avoid asking someone "Do you understand what I just said?" or "Do you follow me?" as it will typically elicit a "yes" because the listener will not want to admit that they missed your message.

• Try to speak about others as if you would if they were in the room.  If you speak critically of someone in a way that you would not if they were present, listeners will lose respect for you and lose your message.

• With all of the e-mailing that goes on, remember that most people can speak 8 to 10 times faster than they can type.  Pick up the phone!


• Avoid leaving the voice message “please call me”. Tell people exactly what you are looking for and ask them to leave detail on your voice mail if you don’t pick up when they call you back.  This is a huge time saver and will eliminate most games of phone tag.


• Consider using this voice mail greeting…"I am sorry I missed your call.  Please leave a detailed message, I or the appropriate party will return your call as soon as possible.  Thank you."

Written

Now that e-mail and even text messaging has become so prevalent, consider these tips to increase your effectiveness and professionalism:


• Use spell check.  Your attention to detail reflects upon the quality of the work you do. 

• In e-mail and texts messages, be careful with upper case letters.  Words or sentences with all upper case come across as if you are yelling electronically.

• Only write what you would say face to face.  I've seen some horrible e-mail messages in the work place and most of these would never have been spoken face to face.  If you are angry pick up the phone, schedule a face to face, or simply take some time to cool off before you start typing.

• Less is more.  Edit written messages before sending and eliminate as much as you can while maintaining the key message.  People deal with more messages today than ever before.  Get your point across briefly to ensure that it is comprehended.





Jim Pascale is a 20+ year veteran of consulting with small business owners and has comprehensive knowledge of small business management and franchising. Contact Jim at jimpascaleminnesota@yahoo.com.

A Time for Resolutions

Every New Year brings talk of resolutions. We've all heard people commit to losing weight, exercising more, working smarter, spending more time with loved ones and so on. It is not surprising that so many people make resolutions. It's human nature to want more out of life. What surprises me is that we call them resolutions instead of goals. The word "goal" has a completely different feel to it. A goal is something that will take focus and effort to attain. A goal is something that takes planning, scheduling, action and measurement of results versus objectives. A goal is something where the risk of falling short or fear of failure may be the one reason that people don't want to venture into this uncomfortable territory.

The old adage that smart people learn from their mistakes and that successful people learn from other's is pertinent to this discussion. Countless studies show that individuals who lay out their goals in writing accompanied by an action plan are the ones who get what they want out of life. So why is it that such a small percentage of us lay out our goals each year. In life, rewards go to the bold. If you haven't already begun a regimen of writing down your goals annually, today can be your new beginning.

Consider these tips for laying out your goals:

• Commit about 2 hours for this.


• Lay out long-term (the rest of your life) and short-term (this year) goals.


• Categorize your goals by the areas that are of the greatest importance to you. For example, I use the following categories: Health, Spiritual, Relationships, Career, Financial, Adventure and Educational. The key is that you find the categories that match your life.


• Under each categories, list your goals. This is actually fun. We remember making our Christmas lists when we were kids. This is your Christmas list for life and you are in charge! Next to each goal, list the action steps you need to achieve the goal. Remember that you can enlist the help of others here. Then, next to each action step, list a deadline. As they say in the newspaper business, without deadlines, nothing gets done.

After you've writing your goals, set them aside and go back to them a day or two later. This is a dynamic document and you should be tweaking it as you go. Once your goals, actions steps and planned completion dates are laid out, pull out your calendar and ensure that the actions you need are placed into your schedule as your top priorities. Ensure that things of lesser importance always follow these which are of greater importance.

Review your goals at least monthly. For me, the beginning of each month is the trigger for review. It's amazing how looking at them frequently keeps you grounded and focused. You will find yourself working on your priorities rather than someone else's. Your results will improve and you'll find yourself getting what you want out of life!

Happy New Year!

Jim Pascale

Jim Pascale is a 20+ year veteran of consulting with small business owners and has comprehensive knowledge of franchising and small business operations.

Contact Jim at jimpascaleminnesota@yahoo.com.

Is Your Business Floundering?

The age-old Value Equation of Price + Quality + Service is something we've all read about, talked about and maybe even studied. I submit that it may be the most overlooked, critical factor affecting the performance of small and medium sized businesses today.

In today's world, businesses have to be competitive in all 3 areas of the Value Equation, but to grow and succeed, they must very clearly identify one of those 3 areas and excel at it. I've recently done work with with a franchise organization that has positioned itself as the premium quality product and service provider in their space. Yet a conversation with a struggling franchisee revealed that he does not spend money on marketing or on improving in any aspect of customer service and product expertise. He simply spreads word of mouth that his products are the cheapest in town. Clearly there is a breakdown between the value his brand would like to provide and what he has decided to provide on a local basis. It is no wonder that marketing material messaging and tools "do not work for him" because he has not bought into providing the component of the Value Proposition that the company's training, tools and marketing address.

Look at your business and determine if your best competitive advantage should be 1) A lower price (a dangerous game unless your operational efficiencies are better than the big guys), 2) Providing Quality that the competition can't match (allows you to make the margin you want), or 3) Superior levels of Service. Many companies fool themselves by saying their business is all about service when that is the last thing they truly provide. When you know what your edge is, ensure that everything about your organization screams that message. It's the way you recruit, hire, train, manage, market, price, look and communicate. It should be the over-riding theme that guides every decision made within your organization. Figure out what your niche is and then blow the competition away!



Jim Pascale is a 20+ year veteran of consulting with small business owners and has comprehensive knowledge of small business management and franchising.

Contact Jim at jimpascaleminnesota@yahoo.com.

Career Searching in the 21st Century

Each day we hear about people in our personal networks who have been downsized and outsourced. Searching for a position with unemployment hovering around 10% can be daunting...even for top performers.

Time proven strategies for a successful career search still include networking, on-line portals, executive recruiters, and so on. It is very important to know that technology is playing a larger part than ever. 80% of resumes submitted are now added to data bases and your resume has in effect become your own personal web home page.

Databases used by recruiters and employers use the same search functionality that a web browser employs. They search for keywords that are part of your resume. To get noticed, ensure that you do on-line research for keywords that relate to your target career. You will find great suggestions under categories ranging from account management and sales to technical positions. Be sure to take the extra time to ensure that key words are included on your resume and you will greatly increase the chance of employers finding you!

Good luck in your search!



Jim Pascale is a 20+ year veteran of consulting with small business owners and has comprehensive knowledge of small business management and franchising.

Contact Jim at jimpascaleminnesota@yahoo.com.

Where are you headed?

This simple and straightforward question gathers significant meaning when directed at one's career or one's life. In plain terms, if you don't know where you are going, you certainly don't know how to get there. The old line "we don't know where we're headed, but we're making great time" applies to to many professionals these days. But how do we get out of this rut?

The answer is simple, but it's not easy. The key to know where you are going is taking the time to lay out a plan. This plan begins with fundamental goal setting. We've all been to the seminar when the speaker asks the group how many of us have our goals written down and on our person. Typically about 5% to 10% of the group will raise their hands; and half of them are lying.

Effective goal setting takes patience and focus. I recommend the following process. Begin by identifying the roles you play in your life. They could be spouse, parent, business owner, sales manager, sibling, son or daughter, friend, church volunteer, coach, and so on. Next, think about the components that describe all the important areas to having a balanced life such as family, career, finance, health, spiritual, adventure, relationships and so on. List these categories on a sheet of paper. Next look at each of these categories and consider each of your roles as listed above. Write down what you want to accomplish in each category and under each role. List goals for the current year, and for 5 years. Making this list should be fun. It reminds me of being a child during the holidays when we would take an old style catalogue and circle what we wanted for Christmas. Rather than toys we now list things like being debt free, improving our physical condition so we feel great, having a great relationship with our spouses and children, getting that promotion at work and so on.

The next step is the one that was a pleasant surprise for me. After you list the things you want while considering your roles, being to list the action steps required to attain each of those objectives. The surprise for me is that I already knew what I needed to do. The key was committing the steps to writing and then adding target dates and getting them onto my calendar.

For example, under finance, you may have a vehicle loan that you would like to pay off in the coming year. After writing this down, you think about the additional funds you'll need. Now you start to look at your budget at home and see where you can save the amount of money you need each month or even better you look at your bonus plan or business to see where you can find additional income there.

The key component to this is how we spend our time. The old adage, if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten" holds true. Even worse, with the way the world is changing around us, if we do what we've always done, we'll get even less. Ensure that you block time on your calendar for the things that bring results. In this day and age, effective prioritization may be the most important skill for an entrepreneur or executive to have. When planning your schedule, do it in this order. 1 Personal things. If you don't put your life and your family life first, it will come last. 2 Required or Mandatory meetings. If the boss says you have to be there, be there. (Sometimes the boss is your customer rather than an employer.) 3 Time to execute the actions on your plan from your goal list. Don't let other people's priorities become your priorities. Schedule major blocks of time for major initiatives and don't allow other things to interfere. Minimize distractions like e-mail and voice mail. Check those twice daily, on a schedule and use the major blocks of each day for accomplishing your objectives.

The clear key to all of this is identifying the objectives, laying out the plan, committing the time (your most precious commodity) and executing. The results from this simply but disciplined course of action will change your life forever. Guaranteed.


Jim Pascale is a 20+ year veteran of consulting with small business owners and has comprehensive knowledge of small business management and franchising.

Contact Jim at jimpascaleminnesota@yahoo.com.

Don't Be SNIOPS!

16 years of my career were spent working for a dynamic entrepreneur named Tom Gegax. Tom and his co-foundering partner Don Gullett founded Tires Plus. Tires Plus was a Minneapolis based tire and service retailer (now owned by Bridgestone-Firestone www.bridgestonetire.com/ ) that dominated markets it entered. One of Tom's favorite expressions was "Don't be SNIOPS!" SNIOPS stands for Subject to the Negative Influence of Other People".

How has the chatter around your office or work place been lately? Are you hearing a lot of doom and gloom? Does it seem like business is bad and getting worse? Are many of you afraid for the loss of your jobs? Are you wondering how you are going to handle to bills if your income stream comes to a screeching halt? If these are the kinds of thoughts that are racing around your head, how exactly are you going to focus and remain fully engaged with your business building initiatives? If you are an entrepreneur or manager, your leadership has NEVER been more important than it is right now.

The point of this article is not to ask you to be an ostrich or a Pollyanna. The current economic situation is very real, but focusing on the challenges rather than the objectives will derail any team. As a leader, consider these techniques for pushing through these tough times.

• Ask for and share success stories. Good news can be as contagious as bad news. Find it. Spread it!
• Keep meetings with staff focused on objectives and steps to attain them. A receiver who looks down field before catching the ball often drops it. Keep every one's eye on the ball.
• Celebrate all successes publicly within your work groups. Seeing others chalk up "wins" will drive the rest of the team and show them that it is possible.
• Keep long-range planning and objectives visible. Short term market challenges look like blips when looked at as a small part of a long-range plan.
• Keep your team tuned in to WIIFM. No, this is not a radio station, but "What's In It for Me". Remind them of the rewards that await them for good performance.
• Emphasize the intangibles. With people, motivation often comes from the little things like a face to face compliment about a specific task or project done well. Send hand written notes acknowledging notable efforts and accomplishments. Studies show that environmental issues outweigh compensation when people list what is important.

There is an old adage that reads "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." As a leader, step up and keep the focus on moving forward. Be realistic, yet positive. You will get results that may surprise you.

Jim Pascale is a 20+ year veteran of consulting with small business owners and has comprehensive knowledge of franchising.

Contact Jim at jimpascaleminnesota@yahoo.com.

Common Denominator of Success for Entrepreneurs

Recently, at an annual conference of a franchise company, the franchisor's leadership team held a series of 4 meetings with its franchise operators to discuss pertinent issues for each group. The interesting part is that the top quartile (in terms of sales volume) met first, then the second quartile, and so on. For these particular meetings, management thought that high volume business operators would interact best with each other and the low volume franchisees would be facing challenges similar to other low volume operators.

The first group, the high volume franchisees, talked about numbers, numbers and more numbers during the entire meeting. They shared benchmarks about their marketing expenditures and plans, margins on sales, product mix by percent, payroll costs and so on. All the pens were flying in the room. By the time the fourth group came through, the meeting was completely different. When questioned about percent of revenue budgeted for marketing or about sales product mix, this group had no idea where they stood. It was a blinding flash of the obvious that the low volume operators did not understand the key metrics behind their businesses.

In high school and college I ran track and cross country. I was blessed with runners body and was very competitive. It is hard to imagine finishing 4 laps around the track and not knowing how fast I ran the mile. It's hard to imagine not knowing the split times for each lap. Without targeting 64 second laps, you would never finish the mile in 4:16.

Ask yourself the question, "Am I in touch with the key metrics that drive my business?" Strong leaders take it to the next level and ensure that all their team members are in touch with the metrics they control. Laying out a plan and consistently measuring actual versus desired results separates the winners from the "also rans".


Jim Pascale
The Entreprenuer's Advantage
Learn more about franchising at http://www.franchise.org/
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jimpascaleminnesota@yahoo.com