For a Big Impact on the Bottom Line, Invest in the Top

Climbing the corporate ladder usually results in good performers being promoted into management positions, or people striking out on their own.  In either case, people find themselves in charge of running the show and managing people without necessarily having the training or background to take on the new responsibilities effectively. 

Different skills are needed to motivate people, resolve conflict, translate strategies into action plans and evaluate performance.  These skills don’t come naturally to all people, nor are they developed quickly without guidance.  More and more companies are investing in executive coaching to shorten the learning curve and provide their key staff the tools they need to effectively transition into leadership positions.

When it comes to defining coaching, the International Coach Federation (ICF) states that coaching is about “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”   Coaches are trained to provide objectivity and accountability while building on individual and team strengths.  They provide resources in areas that need improvement.  In short, coaching promotes doing and doing impacts business results.

Studies conducted by leaders in organizational development have shown that companies realized significant improvements in productivity, organizational strength, bottom line profitability, customer service and quality, and reduced rates of staff turnover as results of executive coaching.  The value of coaching was considered far greater than the money and time invested.

Invest in your company’s leadership team and watch the bottom line grow!

Matters of the Heart

Running a life gets complicated. Our roles with families, friends, business, health, and community have a tenacity to become a blurred line. Sometimes it feels like we are underwater without much oxygen left. Being pulled in many directions is not productive nor is it very much fun. In matters of the heart, stepping back and evaluating what is most important and eliminating the more stressful aspects of what life throws out will keep you happier and healthier. Taking the time to reflect and qualify the areas that matter most to you will help keep the focus on what adds sanity and stability to a crazy life. Choice is about clarifying what is most important and not depriving or ignoring the people you have life commitments to. Balance, planning and taking a breath will clear the debris from your path and build momentum for the future. Take care of your heart, take care of your life.

Live well.
Becky

What's Bacon Got to Do With It?

Image via Wikipedia

My sweet husband only gets his favorite breakfast on the weekends.  It's not my favorite, but he loves it and I love to make him smile, so I figure over the course of 16 years I've made over 800 bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches.  A nice deli sandwich bun, lightly spread with canola margarine and broiled to a lovely light brown...topped with a hard fried egg covered with shredded cheddar cheese (melted, of course)...finished off with crispy strips of bacon.  Man's favorite food.

Bacon has risen to rock-star status over the last couple of years.  Bacon doughnuts, bacon flavored lip gloss, pork belly this and that all over the Food Network.  So wouldn't you think there would be some quality control?  This is what drives me crazy.

My sister-in-law uses the "dump it all in the pan and it'll work itself out" strategy.  I like to prepare the bacon in the microwave - it's super crispy, not greasy, and I feel it's somewhat healthier, somehow.  But in order for me to achieve bacon perfection, I need to be able to get the dang stuff out of the package in nice, neat little strips.  I've tried every brand...expensive, on-sale, store brand, out of the butcher's case...and still I find skinny little strips mixed in with super thick strips.  Either they won't come apart in the first place, or they don't cook evenly, and my husband's perfect breakfast is spoiled by the expletives coming out of the kitchen.

What would happen to all of us in our businesses if sometimes we did things consistently and sometimes we just cut things a little skinny?  What if the 16 oz. package really didn't hold a pound of bacon?  The latest bacon incident - fresh in my mind because it was just this morning - got me thinking about the parallels.  If there's no quality control in bacon, what's next?  There are whole restaurants focused on bacon - there's one here in Boise.  Wonder if they feel my pain?

I guess the only thing to do is raise my own bacon.  No, that won't work.  I know me. And I could never convince the neighbors it was a bulldog.  What do you feed live bacon anyway?

What About NOW?

It’s hard to believe it’s almost the end of January!  How are you doing with your goals so far this year?  Are you making progress?  Are you feeling stuck?   How are you talking to yourself?

Dictionary.com defines catalyst as “a person or thing that precipitates an event or change”.  Be a catalyst for your own growth! 

Rather than get caught up in thinking about what you don’t have that’s keeping you stuck, focus on the resources available to you right now – today – and use them to your advantage.  Acknowledge your skills and experience.  Remember challenges you’ve overcome in the past.  Stay connected with your support networks and others who are invested in your success.

Most importantly, when limiting thoughts pop up and have you convinced that you can’t achieve your goals, ask yourself this question.  “What evidence do I have today to prove that I can’t?”  I bet there is no concrete evidence.
  

Keeping your focus on what you can do today will help you be a catalyst for positive growth in your own life and the lives of those you touch.  You can do it!

Related articles

• The Catalyst (xtonycz.wordpress.com)
• Catalyst to Inspiration (lizawrites.wordpress.com)

Review and Change Eliminates Stagnant Quo!

January is a good time to review goals, mission and vision statements. There may be some changes that took place since your last review and some tweaking to be done. Status quo sometimes turns out to be stagnant quo. Are there some things that just are not working for you anymore? What is different in your company or your life this year? When was the last time you inventoried skill sets, products, direction, people and your customer base?  What is working well?  Where do you want to grow? What do you want to change? Start by reviewing one area at a time, taking on too much will stall progress. Read your vision statement, what does it mean to you? Does it still fit the vision of your company and the direction you want to go? Does your mission statement relay a clear message of how you deliver the product or service you provide and what’s most important? Do you feel in sync with the message you display for the world to see? Are your goals aligned with both your vision and mission statement? A good way to avoid stagnation is to take the time to review and update these important tools. 

A toast to getting out of the rut and moving past status quo!

How do you create lasting connections?

Becky McKinstry of Open Lines visited today with Carolyn Holly of KTVB about creating connections to build your business and help your customers build their businesses, too!

Check it out here!

A New Take on SMART Goals

Image via Wikipedia

With the New Year fast approaching, almost everyone I know is thinking about what they want to accomplish next year.  Though few express it, I believe there's a bit of overwhelm in the air as we all go about this ritual of committing to goals that will help us better ourselves, our businesses, our health, our surroundings. Why the overwhelm?  I think we feel overwhelmed at the beginning of the process for the very same reason we find ourselves on the brink of abandoning ship on many of our goals before we accomplish them - they are things we think we SHOULD do and not things that we truly WANT to
do.  Let's turn the overwhelm into overdrive!

What if we made our goals about making shifts that truly build on our strengths and cultivate new habits that support our growth?  What if we kept our thoughts about ourselves positive?  Just because there's something you could do better or something else that you need to start or stop doing altogether doesn't make you a miserable person or a failure if you have to go at it more than once. Be kind to yourself on this journey!

As I'm putting my goals in place for 2012, I've decided to not only make them SMART goals, but to make them energizing goals. I truly want to achieve these goals because they're MY goals - they mean something to me, I know that achieving them will make me feel great and open my mind to fresh possibilities.

Here's a new way to look at SMART goals:

Specific/Simple:  Be specific, but keep it simple.  Don't be tempted to make things more complicated than they need to be.  We can change the world by starting with our own little piece of it. If gaining control over your paperwork happens to be one of your goals, "getting more organized" isn't a goal...it's a wish.  Commit to a system that will help you operate more effectively.  For example, each time you return from a networking event, immediately enter the contact information and pertinent notes for all the people you met into your database.  Then file or toss the cards. No piles of business cards all over your office and wondering why you have them a month later.

Measureable/Meaningful:  Why track something that doesn't have a real impact on your life?  As you think about your sales goals for the New Year, quantify absolutely everything.  How many appointments do you need to gain one new account?  How many new accounts do you need each week to meet your goals for the year?  What will it mean to your life and your business to meet your goals?  Think about all the benefits, not just the monetary ones.  How will your life improve when you're not buried in mounds of paper and worried about what you've forgotten to do?

Attainable/Authentic:  Here's where the SHOULD's should be tossed out the window.  Not only do your goals need to be attainable, but for you to succeed, they need to have heart.  Your heart.  What do you truly WANT?  What will make you feel successful, satisfied, confident, worthwhile?  Authenticity is the key to unlocking your greatness.

Relevant/Rejuvenating:  If your goal is really important to you, you'll find a way to achieve it.  And because you begin with the end in mind, getting there will be half the fun!

Time-Based/Timeless:  Funny about us humans...we're so time-conscious, if we don't give ourselves deadlines, we can just procrastinate ourselves out of doing something.  Either we do it by MM-DD-YY or we assign it the "whenever" designation.  We all know that doesn't work.  Give it a date and make it something that will make an impact well beyond the foreseeable future.  Maybe you want to shed a few pounds or exercise regularly each week or start an IRA.  Achieving those goals can impact your life forever.

I know we can achieve what we really set our minds on!

To Great Success in 2012!


     

Related articles

• It's a wonderful life; resolutions or goals? (livingms.org)
• Are Your Goals Yours? (matchsoul.wordpress.com)
• Goal Setting for the New Year (missriki.wordpress.com)