Blog Archives - Page 12 of 31

What to Look for in an Outside Advisor

By Ron Price

I spent most of my career serving in leadership roles inside of organizations. I’m grateful for the experiences I gained owning businesses, running businesses owned by others, and leading in non-profit organizations. From time to time, I had occasion to engage and work with consultants, facilitators, and coaches in each of these organizations. Unfortunately, I was rarely satisfied with the role these outside advisors played in helping our organizations move forward.

What’s in Your Self-Resource Toolbox?

By Jalene Case

“We have exceeded our surge capacity,” is a phrase I heard recently from Jennifer Louden. I thought, “Yes! That’s what it feels like! My inner surge protector is fried.” At the same time, I realized that I’ve been learning, along with my clients, friends, and family, how to survive the recent deluge of disasters. I bet you have, too.

Changes, especially uncontrollable changes, can leave you craving a way to get beyond the tornado of emotions so you can stand on firm ground again. How can you help yourself move forward? Self-resourcing. By gathering support resources, you can be there for yourself, and as a result, be there for the people you care about most.

The 4 Properties of Effective Business Experiments

Experiments Aren’t Just for Scientists, Use This Proven Tool to Improve Your Offerings

By Dr. Evans Baiya

Any business that is looking to launch new offerings, improve processes and solutions, or simply grow should be running experiments. There is an effective way to conduct experiments, and there are many not-so-effective ways. Throughout my career I have been on both sides of that fence—once running hundreds of experiments in an attempt to prove that the product my team had created was right, when other experiments were telling us it was not.

7 Tactics to Lead Through a Crisis

By Ron Price

After 50 years of serving in a wide variety of leadership roles, I’m convinced that every leader will face multiple crises as a normal part of the leadership journey. In my own experience, I have found myself in the middle of crises brought on by leadership failures, destructive fires, economic downturns, supply chain breakdowns, regulatory battles, business fraud, work violence, and now in 2020, a global pandemic. For much of my career, I viewed these crises as interruptions and distractions, seeking to put them behind as quickly as possible so we could get back to our organizational plans.

Move from Blocking to Supporting Yourself

By Jalene Case

“I’m my own worst enemy!” Have you ever said this or heard a friend or colleague say it? It can feel frustrating and demotivating to know precisely what we want to accomplish yet take actions that move us in the opposite direction. How can you get out of your own way and support yourself in getting more of what you want?

After working in organizations for more than three decades, I started my own business a few years ago. It surprised me that the gnarliest challenges came from inside me, not from the external skills I was learning. Internal voices that overly criticized and structures that didn’t work blocked me from reaching my goals, dreams, and life purpose. Yes. It’s a big deal! Growing skills to support ourselves is essential if we want to create purposeful, meaningful, lives we love.

How to Make Your Customer Interactions More Effective

The 4 Levels of Listening

By Dr. Evans Baiya

So much has changed because of COVID-19, including the needs of your current and potential customers. Now more than ever, companies should be listening to their customers. One of the keys to recovery is truly understanding what your customers need and adapting your offering(s) to their requirements. Your ability to listen will become key to your survival as you innovate through the pandemic economy.

Paddle Toward Your Vision

By Jalene Case,

Our responsibilities can toss us around like we’re rafting through white-water rapids without a paddle. Our direction feels like it’s utterly controlled by the river. This is how it can feel when we don’t have a clear vision and goals guiding us to where we want to go.

I knew where I was heading and how I was going to get there before the pandemic hit. And then, for a while there, it felt like I was on a wild river without a paddle! To stick with this metaphor…now I see my path forward and have paddles in-hand to take me where I want to go. Here’s what my route looked like.

What Are Your Clients Thinking?

By Dr. Lisa Aldisert,

The answer to this question requires action! Reflect on the conversations you’ve had recently with your clients or customers. Do you really know what’s on their minds, or are you making assumptions?

Often, we project our opinions onto our clients. If we are struggling with COVID related problem X, we assume that our clients are also struggling with the same problem.

Although we certainly share similar challenges, the degree to which we can more deeply understand our clients’ challenges will inform the types of solutions we provide for them now and in the future.

Creating Better Learning Experiences During COVID

By Ron Price,

These are such interesting times! Of course, when we look at the human challenges and suffering, we hope it is a “once in a century” period of turmoil. I often think about the stages of grief and how we have all been forced to embrace new realities. The first stage in the grieving process is denial, which many of us probably experienced from mid-March to mid-April. Because so little was understood about Covid-19 at that time, many of us hoped for a short period of “shelter in place” to be followed by a quick return to normalcy. As a result, most consulting, facilitating, training, and coaching programs were put on hold.

Four Ways to Innovate Right Now

By Dr. Evans Baiya

While the pandemic has been difficult for all us economically, as business owners, we never run out of opportunities. No matter the business climate, there is always a chance to do something new and something better—you just have to find it.

This has never proven truer than now, with the way business has been forced to change and adapt due to lockdown. Businesses that are looking for opportunities are finding them, and those that aren’t are facing the consequences.

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