Interview with Kurt Schemers on Traders Nation

October 13, 2009

I had a great time discussing my new book “The Real Truth about Success” with Kurt Schemers at Tradersnation.com. He is witty guy and I look forward to visiting with him again in November.

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Posted by Garrison Wynn

Lies About A Doomed Economy And Why we Believe Them

September 10, 2009

Time to Hear the Real Truth

As we work our way through this economically challenged period, you’ll notice the economy getting a little better. Even media outlets now understand they’ve begun to lose audiences over the constant negative hype – or should I say “objective reporting”? – so they have to get a bit more honest. Amid all the bad news, a recent CNN newscast uncharacteristically acknowledged that the crime rate is down 38 percent since 1980. As much as it may tick off the doubters, things are getting better, like they always do.

Economic TruthYou know me not to be a Pollyanna; I’m pretty realistic about things. I’m not buying into the end-of-the-world theory. I had to laugh the other day when I came across a TV show called Life After People. You know we’ve fully bought into the doom concept when a show about the world moving on after humans have died gets a prime-time spot. What’s next? How to Be a Regretful Corpse? Let’s face it: Things are getting better and there is nothing we can do about it. 

Six Signs That Our Situation Is Getting Better

A Time Line for 2009

  1. The swine flu headlines, coupled with major use of the word pandemic, turn out to be overblown. When it comes down to it, this sensationalized flu was just – well, the flu. And a weak flu at that, claiming fewer than 500 lives in the United States. Let’s put that into perspective: Each year in the United States, car accidents kill about 50,000, the flu kills about 36,000, and at least one guy dies from getting sick in his car. In reality, cars and the regular old flu are relatively deadly but we shrug them off as negligible hazards because we’d rather obsess about the swine flu! I guess swine flu sounds so much more menacing and devastating, like evil devil-pigs are scheming and plotting to infect your neighborhood. (When we’re no longer impressed by swine flu, we can worry about the newest health threat, the H1N1 virus. Just hide your disappointment when you learn it’s another name for swine flu.) 
  2. We ignore clear signs that the real bad news is drying up. The other day I honestly thought I was watching the Michael Jackson Channel. The Glittered Gloved One had his fame and income-generating ability reconstituted in the only way that seems to work consistently: He died. He was a great talent, for sure, and his resurgence of fame is proof that there was not enough bad economic news to edge out the coverage of his passing. 
  3. People work hard to take the encouraging edge off of any statistic that shows economic improvement. You’ll hear something like this: We did not lose as many jobs as we predicted last month but unemployment is still high. Translation: We made a negative prediction that we hoped would get attention, and it turned out we were wrong. But just because the rate of job loss is topping off does not mean people have enough jobs. So things are bad, even if they are not quite as bad as we’d hoped! 
  4. USA Today begins to print lame recession stories. In “One Step Back: Retail Sales Slip; Jobless Claims Tick Up,” we learn that retail sales slid 0.1% in July after increasing 0.8% in June. While a cursory reader takes in the headline and thinks we’ve tanked again, readers with a greater attention span get the bigger picture: Hello, we’re still up 0.7%! And the really astute reader sees that these numbers are all just fractions of a percent. Other headlines help confuse the issue: “Economy Seems to Be Coming Back; Consumers Not So Sure,” followed by “Stocks Drop as Investors Worry About Consumers.” So who do we believe? The consumers reading the headlines? The investors reading the consumers? Or the analysts reading the actual numbers? If I were a betting man, I’d go with the actual numbers…but that’s just me.  
  5. We start talking about Iraq again and pretending that North Korea is a threat. Let’s get real. We might not be the most popular country on the planet, and we have our drawbacks as a culture and people. But I have hung out with high-ranking U.S. military officers who told me that we could beat any country in a war over the weekend “if we had to – if only they would let us use all the cool war technology we have!” That’s pretty scary, but it makes a strong point. (It also makes me glad these guys are on our side.) No country is a traditional military threat. (Terrorism, sure – but an invasion? Not so much.) I guess with a 24-hour news station and only about an hour’s worth of actual news to report, we have to worry about something. 
  6. My 80-year-old dad has gone back to complaining about physical ailments and what’s wrong with whoever just left the room.

 Focusing on the Real Truth

We have to get back to the real truth: Life has it bumps. We overreact and make the bumps worse sometimes, but then we eventually return to the business of living and moving forward.  

Wynn Solutions has found that the most successful people in this slump did not hunker down and ride it out. They fought their way through and even grew in a way that will make them super-successful when the economy is fully restored. Cutting back on sales and marketing or canceling meetings is not the road to success. Neither is reducing the quality of your ingredients to cut costs. (I just ate at a restaurant that served me something that might best be described as a chicken knuckle.) 

My company has been blessed, like many of you have been, with a lot of business in 2008 and 2009, and we all know we did not get there hunkered down. (Even the phrase “hunkered down” paints a picture of someone slumped over in a shallow hole. It’s self-defeating!) We got there by finding our unique edge and applying or customizing it to the shifting needs of our market. As I’ve often said, you can pray, but then you have to get up and act like it worked! You rarely move ahead if you sit on your behind.   

This point is a recurring theme in my new book, The REAL Truth about Success: What the Top 1% Do Differently, Why They Won’t Tell You, and How You Can Do It Anyway (published by McGraw-Hill and available worldwide in bookstores on October 9th and on Amazon.com now). Through a decade’s worth of interviews, I’ve learned that some of the nation’s most successful people get where they are by acting on some distinctive edge or personal advantage. They aren’t necessarily the best or brightest or even the most talented – but they know what’s special or unique about them and put it into play, positioning them well in a competitive market. 

And much like the headlines above, our interviewees were a bit evasive about the real truth … mainly because the truth might not sound intriguing or impressive enough! 

We found that people at the top often give misleading answers when you ask them questions about how they got there. In fact, they tend to give reasons for success that sound identical to answers we got from people who are not very good at what they do. We heard far too much consensus, so we changed our method of questioning. “No offense,” we’d say (which is exactly what you say right before you offend someone), “but a thousand people do what you just said and they are not successful like you! They are not No. 1, so clearly what you told us is not your key to success.” The revised approach generated some different answers – some shocking, some ridiculously simple, and some downright weird. 

Ultimately, we discovered that what the top 1% did not have in common was a good attitude, superior intellect, and talent. What they had were advantages that gave them an edge. Everyone has advantages; it’s just that most people don’t know what their advantages are, don’t know how to use them, or have beliefs that make them think they shouldn’t use them. That makes these lies about success much easier to tell than the truth. But the real truth – in my book and in the points above about the economy – is far more encouraging than the “spun truth” that we’re fed every day.
More on economic speaker Garrison Wynn.

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Posted by Garrison Wynn

Influence: Getting People to Think

June 24, 2009

Influence. We all want it to some degree. Whether its influence with your boss, your employees or even your spouse, influence allows our ideas to be heard and used. But you need to know what people value before you can influence them.  By getting the other person to focus on what they value, your influence becomes more accepted, even expected.

The way to keep people focused is to get them to think, not just teach them. Teaching people is important but it only allows them to do what they’ve learned. When you get them to think they become innovative. They can improve, expand upon and create. They are not just drones who do what they are programmed to do. And you teach people to think by asking good questions.  Remember, the person asking the questions is in control of the conversation. 

     
Examples of two good questions:  

  1. Is there a question I didn’t ask you today that you think I should have?  This is a good thing to ask at the end of a conversation. It proves to person that you care and it gets them to think more deeply about what you’ve told them. It may even get them to ask the question they were afraid to ask.  
  2.  Is there a difference between what you think is important about your job and what others think is important about your job?  This type of question can help create more awareness of priorities. It allows them to see more than just their side of an issue, putting a proper perspective on the issue at hand.     

Of course, asking questions just to ask questions can backfire. It’s not only annoying, but can sometimes open you up to potentially awkward situations, eroding any credibility you had up until you unload the mother of all bad questions.

Some potentially bad questions could be:

  • Are you sure you have the smarts to do this job?
  • Are you male or female?
  • How are you still working here?
  • When’s the baby due? Oh…you’re not pregnant.
  • Is that your real hair?
  • Do you make your own clothes?

It’s easy to avoid asking bad questions, just keep your mouth shut! But asking good questions takes effort. Sometimes we like to shoot from the hip. Unfortunately that only works if you are a good shot. And even good shots miss on occasion. One of the things you can do is every time you ask a good question write it down. Start stockpiling them, store them somewhere you can review them often. Over time, you will have these great questions committed to memory.  You’ll have questions for every scenario. It takes time to build a group of good questions, but once you have them, you’ll see your influence grow.
Did we answer all your questions?   

Listening article: Listening Like a Leader – The Truth about Trust

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Posted by Garrison Wynn

Your a “Big Mouth” – And I Like It!

June 24, 2009

bigmouth
To have influence make sure the influential people with the biggest mouths are on your side up front.

You have people in every organization who have the ear of the masses and can’t shut up (and they never will). Somehow, through sheer personality and guile, these people have some sway over the rest of the group.

Find these people!

Get them behind your idea by showing them how good they will look to others if they support your agenda. Let them become your “PA System” and work for you to spread the word. Having a lot of people believe in what you do before you actually do it, gives you a huge edge. It’s like discussing the details of a great buffet to a hungry audience 10 minutes before lunchtime. You pretty much had their attention before you started talking. Otherwise, the only change you will make will be changing your mind about the change.

Need a communication speaker for your next event?

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Posted by Garrison Wynn

White Lies Clients Tell You When They Choose Your Competition

June 24, 2009

Have you ever thought that the reason the client gave you for choosing a competitor didn’t sound like the truth? Did it sound like a bald-faced lie? Or was it like the end of a bad date — “It’s not you; it’s me”?

Here are five white lies clients tell you, along with the underlying reality:

  1. The white lie: Your proposal was good but we need to spread the work around.
    The truth: Your representative is brilliant, but we hate him. He is inflexible and makes the staff lose their desire to live.
  2. The white lie: I thought you guys do the best work, but my staff recommended the competitor.
    The truth: Two of my technical people said you screwed up the last project and ran over budget, and no one would listen to us.
  3. The white lie: We are in a holding pattern right now and are trying to reorganize the project.
    The truth: We don’t have any money — and if we did, we are not sure we would spend it with you.
  4. The white lie: We have decided to review all the proposals again.
    The truth: Your proposal was not very clear (neither was your project manager), and we are using your proposal as a last resort, as a worst-case scenario.
  5. The white lie: You will get the next one.
    The truth: Someone has a better relationship with us than you do and will have to screw up before you have a shot.

A white lie is polite way of saying “We don’t like doing business with you.” Having a good relationship, giving a clear presentation and making sure your clients feel heard and appreciated are three assets that the most successful have in common.

A lot of very talented people and organizations are overlooked because they think being the best is good enough to win. Unfortunately, people don’t choose what’s best; they choose what they are the most comfortable with, whether it is the best or not.

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Posted by Garrison Wynn

Don’t Overreact! Avoid creating your own economic downturn

April 17, 2009

Are we doing all we can to weather a difficult economy? In previous articles, I’ve pointed out that some people fare better than others. A few of us are even defiant in our approach. I recently saw a lady wearing a button that read “I refuse to participate in the recession.” I guess that’s better than wearing one that says “I’ve lost the will to live!”

How to survive economic downturnMost of us are doing the best we can, but “the best we can” might not be good enough. We might need to do things better than we can, which means we have to look at how we think, examine what we believe and even get some help.

Do we hunker down, cut back all our expenses, let a few people go, watch the news and prepare for the world to end? Or do we increase our efforts, pinpoint our markets (which means targeting those who actually have money) and make sure our bosses, customers and employees can see our value?

The knee-jerk reaction is to adopt the first approach. The media makes it easy to buy into messages of desperation and doom – have you noticed CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s really nice way of telling us there’s no hope? Seeing a 40-year-old with a head full of gray hair makes us feel like being overly worried is normal!

We need to avoid behavior that indicates we look at life through loser-colored glasses. That kind of behavior reveals a defeatist attitude that saps our productivity and affects the way other people value us. So beware of those doom-tinted lenses – the dismal view they offer can make even those who work in the public sector begin to question job stability: Are we going to get government money? Will even we have layoffs? Is the job I took because it had more security than the private sector still secure? Will we finally get rid of that employee who’s been here for forty years, smells like Doritos, does zero work and yet can’t be fired?

Unfortunately, sometimes we’re not even aware of our defeatist behaviors, even though they are obvious to those around us. Watch for these five signs that indicate ineffective plans to succeed in tough times:

  • You cry in front of your employees or coworkers with alcohol on your breath.
  • You fire the slightly overpaid “New Guy” for borrowing your lucky stapler (the red one you’ve had since 1992).
  • Your boss keeps uncharacteristically patting you on the back.
  • You’re concerned about how a slowdown in business will affect morale so you cancel the annual meeting in Las Vegas. (Nothing says “Be afraid! Be very afraid!” like canceling the one meeting people actually want to attend.)
  • You decide that keeping the office temperature at 88 degrees will save some money and weed out the wimps. (Our research shows that sweaty people are less productive and more likely to short out their keyboards.)

Let’s not miss the underlying point here: The “we’re doomed” view leeches the value right out of us. It erodes our ability to perform and to lead. It’s easy to spot and long remembered.

Practical Pointers for Surviving a Tough Economy
The better strategy for making it through a difficult economy is not so irrational or overreactive. It involves identifying what opportunities still exist rather than mourning last week’s losses or obsessing about calamities to come. As the value of everything around us recedes somewhat, we want to be the ones who stand apart because we’ve redoubled our efforts, identified opportunities and asserted our value.

I won’t tell you that you need to have positive attitude. Hope and faith certainly help, but they’re not enough to float you effortlessly through a shake-up. So, while a positive outlook is great to have – recommended, even – what we really need are realistic actions that make a difference. I’ve listed a few here.

Hang on to your most talented people.
Treat them well and make sure they know they are valued. Our interviews with top performers showed that many of them jumped ship in the past because, as business slowed down, management made them feel they weren’t important anymore. Some were even let go and then were begged to come back, usually to no avail.
Remember that even in a difficult job market your top people have options. They will leave if they feel unappreciated. The people who suck, however, are yours for life!
Keep things as normal as possible.
Don’t participate in activities that prove you don’t believe things will bounce back. Unless you have a small business with big cash-flow issues, look at yearly costs or longer-term costs. You might decide you have to reduce expenses, but be creative – take time to assess what’s really important. Discontinuing your marketing and sales efforts or sacrificing quality for greater profitability is a terrible idea with a bad track record. To move forward, you typically have to spend some money or inspire more effort from your employees. You don’t get anywhere if you simply tread water. (Let’s face it: Treading water really means controlled drowning.)  Research shows that the best way to influence people is to make them feel valued – important information for those who hope to get more effort from their workforce. Canceling meetings that employees really like or cutting out the best part of the meeting does not make much sense. Our research in this area shows that bad food and bad presenters make attendees think you don’t value them. They will put up with a lesser location and a mediocre hotel because it shows you are mindful of costs. But if you give them bad budget spaghetti and line up Crazy Jimmy from Marketing, who mistakenly believes he is both smart and funny, as the keynote speaker, the meeting attendees will think “Wow … do they just hate us?”

Think of it this way: If you are at home eating a bad TV dinner with arctic freezer burn when your cable goes out, leaving you stuck watching what appears to be a very fuzzy Fantasy Island rerun, it does not matter how comfortable your couch is, how realistic your artificial plants look, or how much your spouse tells you to get over it. You’ll still feel miserable.

Refrain from talking too much gloom and doom at the office.
One woman recently told me her boss instructed her department that they could discuss rough times at lunch but anyone caught going on and on about it in the office would be written up for dragging down morale. While that policy might have some freedom-of-speech implications, it does reinforce a sense of accountability: We are responsible for our own emotions, and we must look closely at the effect our emotions will have on others. If the words we utter won’t solve things or brighten things, why utter them again and again? It only opens us up to something I call implicit quicksand: When we believe we have the right to draw others into our personal pain, they naturally assume the right to draw us into theirs, and we all get sucked downward deeper and faster together (sounds like an episode of the TV show Lost).  Those of us who let bad news dominate our thoughts should remember that whatever we focus most of our attention on is what our life looks like. It’s like asking people in their eighties how they’re doing. Because they probably don’t work or spend much time anticipating the years ahead, the answer will likely involve a physical ailment.
Check the motivation of your sources
Don’t listen to the media or investment gurus about the state of the economy. The media makes no money with good news. If the news is really good, we just change the channel. And as I’ve stated in other e-news bulletins, their information is false. Despite media assertions that we live in a depressed, crime-ridden country, crime is down 37 percent since 1980, and we are not in a depression. A depression is when your non-FDIC bank loses your money forever, driving you and your flapper girlfriend to drown your sorrows at the local speakeasy. The worst crime sprees occurred in the early 1930s, when everybody hated banks so much that when you robbed one, people actually helped you escape.  In other words, what we’re experiencing now is a mere shadow of worse events in our history, not some new, uncharted course into a darker future than we’ve ever seen. History repeats itself only if we don’t create safeguards to prevent it – and we did. We might experience some new problems, just not the “Oops-the-bank-lost-all-your-money!” problem.

It’s equally important to remember that some investors tend to drive the stock market down with bad news because they hope to buy low and sell high. They are motivated to give the worst news possible. Don’t listen to those guys! When times are tough, listen to rich people in the twilight of their lives – they’ll be the most honest. Billionaire Warren Buffett doesn’t need your money, and he’s old enough not to care what the public thinks of what he says. (People over 70 tend to lose their filter, I’ve noticed.)

For example, last month on CNBC, Buffett said our economy had “fallen off a cliff” but then emphatically stated his conviction that “everything will be all right. We do have the greatest economic machine that man has ever created.” A few days before that, he wrote in his annual letter to shareholders that “our country has faced far worse travails in the past,” including a dozen or so panics and recessions in the 20th century and unemployment rates of up to 30% during the Great Depression.

“America has had no shortage of challenges. Without fail, however, we’ve overcome them,” he wrote. “Though the path has not been smooth, our economic system has worked extraordinarily well over time. It has unleashed human potential as no other system has, and it will continue to do so. America’s best days lie ahead.”

Tough economic times are just part of the journey we go through to get wherever we are going. We always say it’s the worst ever when we are in the middle of it, we are always glad when it’s over, and it always eventually is over! The key is not to take such drastic action that our solutions become worse than the problem we’re trying to solve. We want to avoid overreacting to the point of causing our own personal economic crises. Our reactions are what we have the most control over … although watching reality TV shows may cause us to question that.

We happen to be at that place in history where the economy got bad again. It does that every now and then. We usually have about five good years, five mediocre years and five tough years. There is a name for that – they call it life.

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Posted by Garrison Wynn

The Real Truth about Success: Getting Great Results When Things Aren’t That Great

April 10, 2009

How do we get great results?

By taking a look at the truth about success!

My keynote  presentations and training programs  are based on my company’s research of top performers (5,000 top-performing people of influence in 21 industries) and shows what the most successful people have in common. Recently, I created a summery of the core ideas I presented in a keynote for a client looking to provide something extra for attendees to take home. These same idea are examined in detail in my newest book “The Real Truth about Success” . 

The Real Truth about Success is based on Wynn Solutions’ research of top performers (5,000 top-performing people of influence in 21 industries) and shows what the most successful people have in common.

Dealing with difficult people is one of the true litmus tests of being influential. When you boil it down, if you criticize the ideas of the people you are dealing with, they are less likely to use your ideas; and if you make people feel important, then you and your agenda/ideas will be more important to them. We also have to learn the importance of our behavior reflecting on our skill level. Sometimes our behavior betrays our skill. If people do not like your behavior, they will consistently look for reasons not to trust or agree with you. It is possible to be right without making others feel people wrong. People do not choose what’s best; they choose what they are the most comfortable with whether it’s the best or not.

Another often-overlooked area of influence and teamwork is judgment. Top performers acknowledge and act on the concept that everyone knows something they do not. We can all learn from one another. Also, when confronted with bad ideas or information, an attitude of conciliation is the most effective approach. In other words, instead of saying “You’re wrong,” you can take a step back and calmly state, “I disagree with your approach (ideas) but am willing to listen.” This disarms the listener and creates a spirit of teamwork that will enhance the opportunity for productivity. You might also find you are more in agreement than previously thought. Furthermore, you might discover why the person you are speaking with is in fact incorrect, and you can forward the conversation from there. The amazing part of this tactic is that as you listen and gain agreement, you will see that they will start to change their story to match yours as a product of trust gained.

Top performers also understand the truth about trust. Our research shows that trust is built on the foundation of two things: compassion and competence. Data we have collected about effective communication styles clearly demonstrates that an overwhelming number of people responded well when they felt heard or listened to. If you make them feel heard and appreciated, as stated earlier, you and your agenda will be more important to them.

When you rob people of their uniqueness, you make one of the biggest communication mistakes there is. Don’t be dismissive if people say they’ve got a problem. Agree that their problem is valid, and they will be more accepting of your solutions – so accepting that they’re more likely to take accountability for those solutions. Agreement is the foundation of accountability. People are much more likely to be in agreement with those who have agreed with them first!

Another issue is dealing with people you don’t get along with very well. Many people think getting everyone to like each other is the key to success, but our research shows that how well you work with people you don’t get along with will define your greatness. You must be willing to look at your own behavior; if you have personality conflicts on a regular basis, you need to investigate your personality.

Also, top performers know everyone has the same basic agenda: We all want sincerity, value and prestige. Sincerity is simply a matter of making sure your sincerity matches the situation – are you being real? Value is about having several scenarios or solutions for addressing a single problem. People need to know you believe there is more than one way to do things. Prestige is about making people look good to others. Can you make them look smart in front of people they want to impress?

If people know you have all three of these attributes, they will listen intently to everything you say every time you speak. It’s the foundation of influence. But even as they listen, they might encounter the obstacle of believability: Some things might be true but might not be very believable. If people believe something strongly, they just look for reasons to prove the “truth” of what they already believe. So the key to getting people to change their beliefs or see things your way is to first show the similarities before calling attention to any differences.

What the most influential people have in common 

  • They can clearly explain value in about 20 seconds: The longer it takes you to explain value, the more people might believe you don’t have any. The key to having a cohesive team is making sure your ideas are perceived as valuable not just for project success, but valuable to them personally. You have to know what people value before you can influence them. You need to teach them to think, not just give them knowledge. You can do that by asking good questions such as these: Is there a question I did not ask you today that you think that I should have?
    Is there a difference between what you think is important about your job and what others think is important?
  • Their ideas are clear enough to follow: It does not matter how smart you are if no one knows what you’re talking about. Clarity, more than intelligence, is the foundation of success. It’s hard to clarify a team vision if it’s fuzzy. You can’t build a shared vision if everyone sees it differently. Your intelligence could cause you to lack tolerance for those who do not understand things the way you do. You could be labeled a poor communicator and lose your influence. You may need to simplify things a bit to be more effective. If the goal is to get everyone on the same page, you’ll want to make that page easier to read.
  •  They understand the issues between older and younger workers: Older workers will quickly attack what they see as a lack of work ethic in younger team members. They see young people who will quit their job to go on a ski trip! Younger workers see the older people as being inefficient and unable to multitask. When they ask a question of an older worker, they feel they get the history of the answer first. They also believe older workers don’t have an accurate grasp of technology. Younger people need to know that an understanding of how things worked in the past will help older team members embrace the new way. It’s hard to create a future without understanding the past. To lead people effectively, you need to know where they’ve been. Older people need to see that you value their experience and are willing to seek their counsel. Let their experience work for you! Older leaders need to give more consistent praise and use small goals and tight deadlines. Wishing someone were more like you is not an effective tactic. You have to manage people for who they are, not who you want them to be. Also, older leaders should remember that young people are not living in our times – we are living in theirs.
  •  They have fair partnerships: A fair partnership guarantees a team effort (lead by example). You have to be willing to do some of the things you’re asking others to do. You can stand your ground but you must show fairness. • They spend time with people who can position them to succeed: Leverage the relationships that will take you somewhere and minimize the time and effort you invest in those that won’t. Spend more time with productive people and create a culture of excellence.
  • They understand the power of gratitude: You attract better people, effort and respect when people know you are grateful.
  • Change is not the problem; it is resistance to change: Top performers know they must constantly grow and adapt to lead people (or themselves) in a successful direction. Action and adaptability create opportunity. Flexibility is the key to longterm success. Intelligence and skill are not enough to make most organizations view you as effective.
  • Success lives in you; you did not get it from a keynote speech or a book: All humans have the basic ingredients of success. That’s why we are the dominant species on the planet. Never forget your value! You have the ability to be influential if you implement practices that already have a good track record of success.

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Posted by Garrison Wynn

The Boss – A Moving Company’s 3rd-Generation Chief – NYTimes.com

March 23, 2009

The New York Times business section recently featured a success story about Maureen Beal, Chief executive of National Van Lines. Maureen gives us some great insight into her secret advantage on her road to success.

Since I was no longer the boss’s daughter, people would say things in front of me that they wouldn’t have before. At lunch with my colleagues, I would hear them talk about terrible bosses. This boss was demanding or disrespectful, that one didn’t listen, and another one never asked about anyone’s family when it had a crisis.
The Boss – A Moving Company’s 3rd-Generation Chief – NYTimes.com

Maureen also makes a strong point about the importance of spending most of your time focussing on what you do well, while surrounding yourself with others whose strong points balance out your weaknesses. If you spend most of your trying to improve your weaknesses, you loose the chance of ever really succeeding in what you do well.

I also learned that you have to surround yourself with people who have the expertise you lack, even if it makes you uncomfortable. My father was a visionary; administration was not his strong point. It’s mine, however, along with the ability to carry out a plan. If someone presents an idea to me, I can determine whether or not it will work. I can’t always define exactly what I want, but I know it when I see it.

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Posted by Garrison Wynn

Talkin’ Tourism: Keynote Presentation for The South Dakota Department of Tourism

March 23, 2009

Being the Best vs. Being Consistently Chosen

by The Blog Team on January 22, 2009

 

southdakotaGarrison Wynn, today’s keynote speaker, brought with him several years of expertise, some excellent original research relevant to the tourism industry, and several great points for all of us to take home. Garrison addressed several issues, from how to speak to your customers and how to manage your employees, to how to build trust and what people (a.k.a. your customers) want and expect from you as a tourism business. A few take aways include:

  • Don’t tell people they’re wrong. Instead, even though you may not agree with them, show them that you’re willing to listen. People want to know they’re being heard. If people feel they’re being listened to within the first minute, they start to trust you immediately.
  • Trust is built on two things: Compassion and Competence.
  • Be agreeable; don’t make people feel dumb, or you will lose any and all ability to influence.
  • Agreement is the foundation of accountability.
  • How well you can deal with the most difficult people will define your greatness. Your worst customer might be the one that spends the most. Similarly, your most talented employee might be the hardest one to manage. And sometimes, we need to take some of the blame.
  • All people want 3 things: Love, Value and Prestige. Be genuine, offer multiple solutions for a single problem, and make your customers and your employees look and feel smart.
  • Don’t criticize the “old way” but draw similarities to the new way…then point out the new and different features. Similarities first, differences second.
  • Be able to explain the value of what you have to offer in 20-30 seconds. Beyond that, people begin to think your product or offering lacks value.
  • Clarity is a must.
  • Action and adaptability provide and create opportunity.

In closing, Garrison says people don’t necessarily always choose the best. They choose what makes them feel comfortable, what they trust, and what they’re looking for in good service. If you can provide those things, you’ll be consistently chosen, again and again.

NOTE: Check out the South Dakota Department of Tourisms trip planner tool.

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Posted by Garrison Wynn

Change Management Speaker Garrison Wynn Opens the ACCA Service Managers Forum

March 23, 2009

 

Article from: Air Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration News

Article date: November 3, 2008

HOUSTON — Service managers play a key role in the success of a contracting business. In addition to usually being the key technical troubleshooting resource in a company, they often manage the largest single department in the company. At a meeting developed exclusively for service managers, more than 300 attended a variety of management training seminars.

Garrison Wynn, a leading authority on change management, opened the Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) National HVACR Service Managers Forum on October 9, with an entertaining and educational keynote address about leadership and communication.

Wynn, a former standup comedian, kept the attention of the audience with a humorous knack for relating his own experiences, both the successes and the failures. He sent the audience home with many take-aways that could be practiced by each when they returned to the world of work. Some of his key points included:

* Agreement is the foundation of accountability.

* People are more likely to agree with people who agree with them first.

* People buy into what they can understand quickly.

* The most successful people can define value in less than 20 seconds.

* People want the same things: love, money, and prestige. Therefore, there are multiple solutions for a single problem.

While talking about effective communication, Wynn reminded the audience that their own leadership is critical to the success of the people they are managing.

“The people you manage are usually at a different level of understanding. If you talk at the height of your intelligence about what you do, you may not communicate effectively,” he said.

Wynn also discussed how managers must understand the difference between more experienced and younger workers. “People under 30 are accustomed to being praised and rewarded along the way, before they reach the end goal. Over-30s expect to get praise and reward at the end.”

According to Wynn, it is a very different mindset and requires an astute manager to understand how to manage both types effectively.

Wynn co-authored “Speaking of Success” with Steven Covey and Ken Blanchard; it is available in bookstores. For more information on Wynn’s offerings, go to Business Success or Keynote Speaker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 Comment | Customer Service, change, management | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Garrison Wynn