How To Apologize

The following great advice about how to apologize is from the new book, The Courage Solution, by Mindy Mackenzie. I'll be posting a full review of the book in a few days. In the meantime, Mackenzie recommends you include these three elements when you apologize:

1. Actually say "I'm sorry" out loud, while making eye contact, if possible.
2. Acknowledging your error by adding the phrase "I was wrong...but more importantly, you were right."
3. Asking humbly, "How can I fix this?" Keep in mind that an effective apology requires you to have actually begun working on a solution by the time you get to this step.

Seven Ways To Be A Collaborative Leader Of A Team

Edward M. Marshall's book, Transforming The Way We Work -- The Power Of The Collaborative Workplace, remains relevant today, more than a decade after Marshall wrote it.

Particularly useful is the book's section that teaches readers how to be a collaborative leader.

Marshall says that there are seven different, important roles and responsibilities of collaborative leaders when leading teams, and those leaders should select the appropriate style to meet the team's needs.

The seven roles are:

1. The leader as sponsor -- You provide strategic direction, boundaries and coaching for the team. You also monitor progress and ensure integrity in the team's operating processes.
2. The leader as facilitator -- You ensure that meetings, team dynamics, and interpersonal relationships function effectively. You also ensure internal coordination of activities among team members.
3. The leader as coach -- You provide support and guidance and you serve as a sounding board.
4. The leader as change agent/catalyst -- You hold team members accountable, make the unpopular decisions, energize the group to action and enable breakthroughs where possible.
5. The leader as healer -- You play the role of the mediator and serve as the catalyst to bring people together.
6. The leader as member -- You serve as part of the team, taking full responsibility for the success of the team and actively participate in the team's activities.
7. The leader as manager/administrator -- You serve in a traditional role of tackling the daily administrative responsibilities, processes, and systems essential to managing the boundaries within the larger organization or key stakeholders.

Within any collaborate workplace, leaders will find themselves fulfilling all seven of these roles at different times, and sometimes fulfilling a combination of the seven styles at the same time, while working with work groups and teams.

Four years after Marshall wrote, Transforming The Way We Work, he penned, Building Trust At the Speed Of Change. Marshall won an award for excellence in organization development from the American Society for Training and Development. He holds degrees from Claremont McKenna College, Syracuse University and the University of North Carolina. 

Nine Ways To Be A Stronger Career Mentor And Coach

Author Paul Falcone offers the following great advice for how to become a stronger career mentor and coach by helping your subordinates grow and develop in their own careers.

1. Encourage others to engage in random acts of kindness.
2. Find creative ways of surprising your customers.
3. Focus on making bad relationships good and good relationships better.
4. Look for new ways of reinventing the workflow in light of your company's changing needs.
5. Think relationship first, transaction second.
6. Realize that people can tell more about you by the depth of your questions than by the quality of your statements.
7. Separate the people from the problem.
8. Always provide two solutions for each question you ask or suggestion you raise.
9. Employ right-brain imagination, artistry, and intuition plus left-brain logic and planning.

And, one of my favorite pieces of advice from Falcone:

• Convert "yes...but:" to "yes...and" statements to acknowledge the speaker's point of view and to share additional insights.

How To Create SMART Goals

Too often, businesses don't have clearly defined goals and even less often specific plans to reach those goals.

When you set a goal for your business, be sure it is SMART:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-related

Share that goal with your employees, so they understand all of the five attributes of the goal.

And then for your plan (sometimes called "program"), keep these tips in mind:

• Realistically assess the obstacles and resources involved and then create a strategy for navigating that reality.  For me this year, that meant adjusting my race schedule this summer to accommodate a nagging hamstring injury.
• Plan for more than just willpower.  Instead, plan by taking into consideration your business environment, your employees' schedules and workload, and everyone's accountability so that all these factors will work together to support you to achieve your goal.

10 Questions Every Leader Should Ask

Here are 10 important questions business leaders should ask, according to Ken Blanchard and Garry Ridge, authors of Helping People Win At Work:

1. Does my business have a clear, meaningful, and easily understood vision/mission?
2. Do I have the right people in the right seats on the bus?
3. Do I have a BHAG (big hairy audacious goal), and have I communicated it to my employees?
4. Are my values driving the behavior I want in my organization?
5. Am I creating a culture that increases employee engagement?
6. Am I cultivating a spirit of internal and external learning?
7. Do my employees know what an A looks like, and am I supporting them to get that A?
8. Are our products/services creating lasting, positive memories for our customers?
9. Do I have the best, most timely data and information to help my business make good decisions?
10. Are our key performance indicators the right ones, and are we measuring what matters?

And, one more questions to ask is:

• Do we celebrate success?

Four Business Books To Read In 2017

To find the best business, communications and leadership books to add to my "to read" list for 2017, I reached out to some of the best experts in the field. Individuals I admire and respect.

Here is what they read this year and recommend adding to your 2017 "to read" list:

Paul Smith

Organizational Storytelling Speaker, Trainer/Coach, Author

The Elegant Pitch: Create a Compelling Recommendation, Build BroadSupport, and Get It Approved, by Mike Figliuolo.

"As a storytelling trainer and consultant, I’m constantly asked by companies to help their managers 'tell a better story.' When I dig in to find out what the issues and needs are, about half the time I conclude that it’s not actually storytelling that they need. What they need is the ability to craft a simpler, more logical, and more compelling argument that they can deliver in a presentation or in a memo. The Elegant Pitch teaches that and does it well," says Paul.

Web: www.LeadWithAStory.com

Twitter: @LeadWithAStory

Paul’s books:

Lead with a Story  (Amazon #1 Bestseller in Business Communication)

Sell with a Story  (Amazon #1 Bestseller in Sales and Selling)

Parenting with a Story

Debbie Laskey

Expert in Brand Marketing, Social Media, Employee Engagement, Leadership Development and Customer Service Marketing

Leading the Unleadable – How to Manage Mavericks, Cynics, Divas, andOther Difficult People, by Alan Willett.

"There are so many how-to lead books on the market that it’s almost impossible to siphon out quality from the imposters, but Willett’s book stands apart as a must-read. Here’s the main theme of the book: While many people are destined to become leaders, how many actually create cultures of excellence where others aim to become leaders? As Willett explained, 'It is your job to provide each person you lead with inspiration, guidance, discipline, correction, training, and most of all, the opportunity to make mistakes and to excel.' Want to learn more? Visit www.leadtheunleadable.com," explains Debbie.

Debbie has served as a judge for the Web Marketing Association’s annual web award competition since 2002, and has been recognized as one of the "Top 100 Branding Experts."

Web: www.debbielaskey.blogspot.com

Twitter: @DebbieLaskeyMBA

Nathan Magnuson

Leadership Consultant, Coach, Speaker, Thought Leader

Extreme Ownership, by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.

"I loved the gripping military stories but also the business tie-ins. The key message is that leaders can't lead until they accept the responsibilities that come with the job. I'd recommend this book to anyone faced with a critical job or project that will require 100% commitment," says Nathan.

Web: www.nathanmagnuson.com

Twitter: @NathanMagnuson

Nathan’s e-book: Trusted Leadership Advisor

David Grossman, ABC, APR, Fellow PRSA

Communications and Leadership Speaker, Consultant, Author

"This year, I re-read Lencioni's classic, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team," says David.

"Trust continues to be one of the fundamental issues organizations, teams, and leaders face. His elegant model and its components have stood the test of time, and are even more relevant today as leaders often work to build high-performing teams without addressing the most fundamental building block - vulnerability-based trust."

David is Founder and CEO of The Grossman Group, an award-winning Chicago-based communications consultancy focused on organizational consulting, strategic leadership development and internal communications.

Web: www.yourthoughtpartner.com

Twitter: @Thoughtpartner

David’s e-books include:
The Mistakes CEOs Can’t Help But Make and the Fixes They Can’t Afford Not to Make
The Definitive Guide to Taming the Email Monster.

Three Leadership Skills Building Tips

Be Decisive

A manager who can't make a decision or who can't make a timely decision will frustrate his/her employees. Equally bad, a lack of decision will impede the progress of the manager's team.

Some managers make endless requests for data as a way to postpone their having to make a decision. Employees end up spinning in circles, slicing and dicing the information far beyond what is truly needed for the manager to make a decision.

Some managers are simply afraid to make a decision in fear of making a "wrong" decision. These managers don't necessarily request needless data, but simply just never made a decision.

Successful managers (true leaders) gather the data from their employees, make any necessary follow-up requests (probing beyond what their employee may have researched/gathered on their own), and then make their decision...knowing that in virtually all cases most decisions are not black and white "right or "wrong," but are the best decisions made at that time for the current circumstances.

Good managers also know that most decisions can be tweaked along the way as their teams carry out their tasks impacted by the decision. 

Find The Truth

If you're a parent of two children you already know that when the two are fighting and child #1 tells you what happened, you then ask child #2 what happened, and most often the truth is somewhere in the middle of what the two children have told you.

Surprisingly, many managers, even when they are parents, don't use this parenting "discovery" skill in the workplace. Instead, they often listen to only one side of a situation. Whether it is because of lack of interest or lack of time, they don't proactively seek out the other side of the story.

The unfortunate result is those managers form incorrect perceptions that can often lead to poor decisions and/or directives.

So, the next time two employees are at odds, or when one department complains about another department within your organization, take the time to listen to all sides of the situation to discover the truth that's in the middle. 

Send A Written Thank You Note

Nearly all employees want to do both a good job and please their supervisor. When they succeed, send them a thank you for a job well done.

A short note (handwritten is particularly good) thanking them for a good job is extremely powerful. Particularly for new employees on your team. Or, for employees new to the workforce and early in their careers.

Include in your note a sentence regarding what they did especially well and how their specific action made a positive impact. Remember, be as specific as possible in what you write.

Be sure to send your note soon after the job was completed. If you wait too long (more than a week), the note will lose its impact.

Send your note in a way it can be easily saved by your employee. Even employees who have been on your team for a long time will likely save your note.

Finally, reserve your sending thank you notes for the big jobs, large projects, extra special work. If you send thank you notes too often they'll lose their effect.