And you’ll discover that the poorer leaders look for someone else to blame.

This scenario all too frequently occurs when entrepreneurs or founders of startups have a vision of their company — or at least the opportunity it is set up to exploit — and intuitively know all the requisite functions necessary to turn their vision into a reality.   Then they hit “speed bumps” when they realize  they have to work through people who don’t perform those functions the way the founder intuitively imagines they should.  That is when the micromanaging begins and rather than becoming clearer, the founder instead rides his/her people harder causing lowered productivity and performance.

To resolve this it is important for the end goal and objectives to support that goal be clearly articulated.  Next the tasks to achieve those objectives and skills to accomplish those tasks need to be clearly articulated.  Then a means to learn and master those skills need to be provided.  Finally after those skills are mastered, the company has to have a structure where people have the capacity (ample time and other resources) to employ those skills to accomplish those tasks to meet those objectives that achieve those goals.

Marshall Goldsmith and Patricia Wheeler invite you to a Thought Leader Teleforum on Wednesday September 30th at 1 PM Eastern time. Please join us in a Thought Leader TeleForum for a discussion focused on “Just Listen: The Secret Weapon to Getting Through to Absolutely Everyone featuring Mark Goulston, moderated by Executive Coach Patricia Wheeler. The first make-or-break step in persuading anyone to do anything is getting them to hear you out.  Whether the person is a harried colleague, a stressed-out client, or an insecure spouse — things can only go from bad to worse if you are unable to break through emotional barricades.  During this TeleForum, Mark Goulston will explore a number of powerful yet simple, easy-to-apply techniques to reach through these barriers and have your message be heard and understood. Using the powerful techniques learned in this session, you’ll be able to turn the “impossible” and “unreachable” people in your life into allies, devoted customers and lifelong friends. Mark Goulston, M.D., is an executive coach, team building consultant trained as a clinical, psychiatrist. He has been a UCLA professor of psychiatry for more than 25 years, trained FBI and police hostage negotiators and worked with or spoken to companies, universities and organizations around the world. He is the best selling author of four books including his latest, “Just Listen”. In addition he writes the Tribune Media syndicated career advice column, “Solve Anything with Dr. Mark,” blogs for Fast Company and the Huffington Post and is a contributor to Harvard Business online. During this 60-minute conference call we will be discussing the three points below plus fielding your specific questions: - Effectively getting through to difficult people…without the fear of making the situation worse - Skills to help you easily confront current situations that you may be avoiding - How to win increased respect from others and confidence in yourself for dealing with difficult situations head on There is no charge for this TeleForum, which will be held at 10 AM Pacific/1 PM Eastern time on Wednesday September 30th.  Please click here to register.  If this link does not work in your browser, you may cut and paste the following URL: www.LeadingNews.org/signupgc.htm. To adjust for international time zones, you can visit World Time Converter. If you have further questions, please contact Lori Glover at 858 382-4687. We look forward to your participation! Patricia and Marshall

Thanks to my supportive subscribers for their support in helping my new book, “Just Listen” reach #1 in four business categories at amazon.com in its first week of publication.

Other chances to catch Mark:

September 30, 4:30-5:30 PM PDT – free guest teleclass at: “Just Listen: The secret weapon to succeeding as an entrepreneurial MD” hosted by The Entrepreneurial MD

October 7, 5:30-8:30 PM PDT – “Cracking the Communication Code” – Professional Coaches and Mentors Association, Santa Monica

Press Release: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

First we are children to our parents,
then parents to our children,
then parents to our parents,
then children to our children.

-Milton Greenblatt, M.D.
as quoted in Get Out of Your Own Way
by Mark Goulston, M.D. and Philip Goldberg

In 1972 while attending medical school, I was working part time doing EKG’s at a Jewish Home for the Aged in Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts. It was a clean and nice facility, but like most of its kind, a “waiting station” before people died. So many of the halls were filled with the infirm elderly in wheel chairs, just staring. It was a very depressing sight for someone my age, with much of my life ahead of me.

On one day I came into the room of Mr. Cohen, a spry, energetic and very much alive man in his eighties. He was such a stark contrast to the rest of the residents there, that I said to him: “You seem so full of energy and so full of life. Why are you living here?”

He replied, “I want to live here.”

His response seemed incredulous to me and I responded with: “I don’t get it. Why would someone like you want to live in a place like this?”

He looked at me and said, “Pull up a chair” and proceeded to try to teach me a lesson about life.

“Nearly seventy years ago, my wife and I escaped the Russia. I can’t count the number of times she saved my life and I saved hers. We moved to Boston and I had a good job owning a tailor shop and we raised a great family, but they have their lives with their children. And since I am really okay, I tell them they don’t have to go out of their way to visit since I am fine and I am helping their mom,” he explained.

“I understand, but I still don’t get why you’re here,” I interrupted.

“Don’t be so impatient,” he replied, “I’m getting to my point. Five years ago, my beloved Goldie had a massive stroke and she lives in a room two floors above where we are standing. She doesn’t speak. Some days she smiles at me when I come in and I like to believe it’s because she recognizes me, but I’m probably kidding myself.”

“I understand, and I have to be going to my next patient, but I still don’t get it. You could visit her and live elsewhere and not live in such a — if you’ll pardon the expression, rather sad — place,” I said rather un-empathically.

“You don’t seem to understand,” Mr. Cohen explained, “every day I get up, take a shower, get dressed and go to Goldie’s room where I clean up the urine she is sometimes laying in, bathe her, change the diaper she wears, dress her and braid her hair the way it was in the old country. Then I sit and read my Jewish newspaper.”

“That’s very loving, but you could could still live elsewhere and do that,” I replied.

“Doctor,” he said emphatically, “I like being here, because every day I get to give my Goldie dignity.”

“That’s wonderful, but you could still live elsewhere,” I said, continuing to be puzzled and heading for the door to see my next patient.

Just before I left, Mr. Cohen had a final comment to make. “Doctor, I do it, because she would do it for me. Maybe someday you will get it.”

Last week I visited my mom who is living in a place like Mr. Cohen’s and whose memory is slipping and last week I started to cut her food.

Maybe someday is now.

Special opportunity to add to your Ultimate Resource Library when you go to Growing Today

Check out new FREE RESOURCES including:

-Two Questions to Get Your Middle School and High Schools Kids Off to the Best Start in School
-Two Questions to Get Your Preschool and Kindergarten Kids Off to the Best Start in School

Listen and watch Mark’s sell out American Management Association webinar: “The Simple Secret to Getting Through to Difficult People”

Mark’s upcoming appearances:

September 21: Small Business Marketing Boot Camp in person presentation

September 30: Leading News teleseminar hosted by Marshall Goldsmith and Patricia Wheeler

September 30: The Entrepreneurial MD telecast

October 2: This Week in Startups guest internet television appearance followed by book signing at offices of Mahalo.com in Santa Monica, CA

October 7: Professional Coaches and Mentors Association Los Angles in person presentation

First seen at Huffington Post

I had a bad dream that won’t go away.

I had this realization that the United States may be essentially “screwed” (not by others, but by itself) as globalization, both socially and economically, becomes more of a reality.

In the dream I looked at the United States through the eyes of the rest of the world and this is what I saw and concluded:

1. “You don’t have a work ethic among your youth or much of your young adults or even middle age adults. By this we mean that unless you are incentivized by a near term material gain or something that adds to your personal status or stature, you don’t try. And also, unless you see that what you are doing will lead to that personal, self-serving goal, you stop trying.”
2. “You act entitled instead of earning what you deserve. That means that you believe that what you want should automatically come to you. You confuse a privilege (which you need to earn) with a right, that is given to you.”
3. “You resist thinking and planning unless it gets you an immediate reward. You are not intellectually curious. You fight learning and instead are focused on having.”
4. “We no longer need your services (which we are quickly becoming skilled at…including creativity which you think is yours alone) nor your products (as ours are increasingly becoming better in quality and reliability).”
5. “What we do need, but increasingly less now than before, is your money to buy our services and products, which you will keep paying us as our services and products increase in quality and are less expensive because we are not weighed down by all your excessive labor and other costs.”
6. “And we are certainly quite happy for you to use your resources both in money and in manpower to go chasing after terrorism in the world. And since we know you will go it alone, we are perfectly happy to let you do that until you can no longer afford it (which has already occurred).”
7. “We are not against you, but if you steadfastly refuse to wake up and do a reality check to see that you are part of the global community and no longer ‘King of the Hill,’ the world will pass you by.”

There was much more in the dream which I thankfully can’t recall, but I think that’s enough to keep me awake for many nights to come.

Please tell me I am wrong.

If by chance you want to not lose sleep and learn the best way to work between generations, check out Interchange Group

The opposite of selfishness is not generosity, it’s sacrifice.

 Selfishness ———-> Generosity ———-> Sacrifice

Last Memorial Day, television actor and Marine Hugh O’Brien spoke to the assembled audience at the Los Angeles National Cemetery and told us that we were there to honor the all who gave some and the some who gave all so the rest of us could be free.  

I didn’t serve in Vietnam because I pulled 363 in the draft lottery. I have spent the last forty years living a good life. My high school classmates, Arthur Stroyman and Paul Dunne, have spent the last forty years on the wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. My children age 27, 24 and 19 have also had a blessed life going to nice colleges and now have jobs. During the same time my good friend Jane Bright’s son Evan Ashcraft was killed in Iraq. The pain and anger threatened to consume Jane until she focused on what Evan kept writing to her in his letters: “When I come home from Iraq, I just want to help people. Evan” To fulfill his dream Jane and her husband Jim established the Evan Ashcraft Foundation.

Every day I drive by the intersection of Sepulveda and Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles. And each time I usually see a veteran of an older war. They are now beginning to be replaced by veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq, by people the age of my children. On a good day, I’ll roll down my window and give one a dollar. But on most days I’ll be on my Blackberry on a call of questionable import and just wave the veteran on refusing to even make eye contact.

I can no longer sit back and do nothing. (And after reading Jayne Lyn Stahl’s disturbing blog, An Insult to Service I hope you will no longer be able to do nothing either).

I don’t think honoring those who gave so much so we can be free — the soldiers, veterants, police, firefighters and their families — is enough; we need to repay them for their sacrifice.

I dedicated Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for Dummies to those who sacrificed so much to create peace on Earth so they might regain peace of mind.

In celebration of Memorial Day I thought it was timely to spread the word about the Aids and Attendance Program to qualified Vets who could benefit from assistance with their care needs. 

The Veterans’ Administration offers a Special Pension with Aid and Attendance (A&A) benefit that is largely unknown.  This Special Pension (part of the VA Improved Pension program) allows for Veterans and surviving spouses who require the regular attendance of another person to assist in eating, bathing, dressing, undressing or taking care of the needs of nature to receive additional monetary benefits.  It also includes individuals who are blind or a patient in a nursing home because of mental or physical incapacity.  Assisted care in an assisted living facility also qualifies.

This most important benefit is overlooked by many families with Veterans or surviving spouses who need additional monies to help care for ailing parents or loved ones.  This is a “pension benefit” and is not dependent upon service-related injuries for compensation.  Most Veterans who are in need of assistance qualify for this pension.  Aid and Attendance can help pay for care in the home, nursing home or assisted living facility.  A Veteran is eligible for up to $1,632 per month, while a surviving spouse is eligible for up to $1,055 per month.  A couple is eligible for up to $1,949 per month.

Find out more at: VeteranAid.org

PS:  Please forward this information to someone who could use it!   

How successful and happy you will be in your career and life
hinges on how effective you are in crucial conversations
where the opinions vary and stakes and emotions run high.
When you’re ineffective, you become exhausted and lose big;
When you’re effective, you win big, because you’ll not only
achieve or exceed the goals you set for yourself,
you will surpass the vast majority of people who aren’t effective.

-Joseph Grenny, co-author Crucial Conversations

I have a real treat in store for you.  On May 20 at 2:00 PM EST you and your team can attend a webinar where I host Joseph Grenny through the Center for Great Management. Joseph will provide a powerpoint presentation that he and his colleagues at VitalSmarts have offered to 300 of the Fortune 500 entitled based on their New York Times best selling book: Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High and entitled: “Get Unstuck! Move your people from dialogue to effective action.” 

I have seen this presentation and I believe it is a guaranteed-to-help-you opportunity that will change the way you communicate with everyone and as he mentioned above will affect how successful and happy you will be in your career and life.

Another great way to increase your chance of becoming successful and happy is to go out and buy my friend Keith Ferrazzi’s brand new book, Who’s Got Your Back? You will discover how to achieve what you never thought possible if you can surround yourself with just three people who care about you, will hold you accountable and who will kick your butt when you need them to.  Check out Keith’s book tour to catch one of his incredible presentations. It’s another way to change your life.

Learn to walk in someone else’s shoes
and you won’t step on their toes (or tick them off),
because you can’t be understanding and frustrated
at the same time.
And if before you’ve meet them,
you can answer, “What’s In It For Them?”
and then have a conversation with them about that,
you’ll never be afraid to confront anyone again.
 
- Joseph Grenny, multiple, best selling N.Y. Times author and co-founder, VitalSmarts

 
 
“Very cute,” you say.  “But how do you do that?” is what you want to know.
 
On Wednesday, May 20 at 1 PM EST, 12 Noon CST and 10 AM PST I am thrilled to be hosting a webinar featuring Joseph Grenny, on “Get Unstuck! Move your people from dialog to effective action.” through the Center for Great Management. 

In this webinar, you’ll discover how to:

• Resolve productivity-sapping disagreements at all levels in your organization
• Build unity and commitment to great ideas
• Strengthen relationships and foster teamwork, even among people with wildly divergent views
• Turn confrontations in constructive dialogue
• Use your powers of influence to persuade people to look past differences and align behind needed change

Joseph is the NY Times best selling co-author of Influencer, Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations.
 An expert in topics ranging from leadership and interpersonal communication to organizational change and effectiveness, Joseph has been cited in dozens of newspapers including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. He has also appeared on more than one hundred radio and television programs including CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, and the Today Show.
 
Sign up to now to listen to this special live presentation with your team and receive a copy of Joseph’s book, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High and Executive Summary of the Event and the chance to follow up with a Four Week Focus Guide.

also seen at Basil and Spice:

When as right as you thought you were
is as wrong as you turn out to be,
you begin to doubt every decision you’ve ever made
and are about to make,
and your life comes to a halt.

To counter this, consider these facts that you can be sure of:

1. If you can’t tolerate the volatility, focus entirely on as many recession proof job/career (even though business may be down) as you can. Do a search on the Internet for “recession proof” occupations.
2. When the volatility and dust finally settles, whoever hits the ground running competent in skills that are always necessary for success will succeed. Retrain, refine, learn or develop skills that you may not have had or taken the time to learn when you were too busy working and that will set you up for success in that recession proof job. Don’t restrict yourself to technical skills; include speaking, writing and networking skills as well.
3. Especially in distrustful times, people do not care what you know or what you can do, until they know what you have already done for someone like them that produced a positive, measurable result in something they are now wanting to accomplish. Make a list of things you have done or were significantly responsible for that produced a positive measurable result for anyone else. List the jobs and companies that most urgently need what you have gotten done for others. Don’t restrict yourself to your specific occupation. For instance my specific occupation is actually clinical psychiatrist, but in my career I have been able to get people who hate each other back on the same page and actually rooting for each other. And that has much more application (to executive/management teams and boards of directors) than a psychiatric practice.
4. People who are trusted by those you want to do business with are in the best position to make an introduction or referral to you. Make a list of such people who you already know and others you would like to know who are in such a position.
5. When you do onto others what is important to them, everyone except the “dyed in the wool” takers will sooner or later feel grateful and this will eventually turn into generosity back towards you. Make a list of what you can do or get done for those individuals that is important to them, connect with them and then give it to them. They may not reciprocate at first, but if you persist and are patient, your generosity will engender gratitude and generosity in return. They may not reciprocate at first, but if you persist and are patient, your generosity will engender gratitude and generosity in return.

A final suggestion. Instead of pulling more into yourself, go out and volunteer for something that helps your community and people who will in turn be grateful to you. When instead of becoming more self-involved you make the world a little better, it frees you up and also causes you to feel more deserving of good things happening to you.

It really is true that what goes around, comes around. So get started today going and giving around you.

A final caveat.  Fear more often brings out the worst instead of the best in people.  And that worst often shows itself in how you treat others.  One of the best ways to make sure this doesn’t happen to you is to identify such success defeating behaviors.  One of the best people to help you with this is Marshall Goldsmith, preeminent coach and author of the WSJ best selling book, “What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There.”

If you have a team of high performers and want to help them reach their full potential, on January 14 from 11-12:30 PM PST, 12-1:30 GMT, 1-2:30 PM CST, 2-3:30 PM EST you won’t want to miss the live webinar, Leadership Strategies for Managers featuring Marshall Goldsmith and hosted by me through the Center for Great Management.

As a subscriber to my Usable Insight mailing list, enter coupon code “goldsmith 50″ and save $50 off each virtual seminar’s regular price of $349

Finally, I hope you’ll visit some of my political blogs at the Huffington Post

- my mom dropping me off at Logan Airport in September, 1966
to attend UC Berkeley and something she remembers
more clearly than what she ate for breakfast

I have become a combination masochist-”rubber necker” when I read my daily Los Angeles Times.

Instead of starting at the front, I read the Business section first and become either depressed or anxious, then I look at Sports to become distracted, then I glance through the auto and other ads to look at things I was once able to buy, then I very briefly look at the Home section to see how far my home’s value has dropped, then I look at the Calendar section to possibly find a movie of interest to escape to and finally I look at the front page. And the front page of the Saturday, December 13 LA Times gave me reason to pause…a little perspective and calmed me down.

Maybe it will do the same for you: Saturday, December 13, 2008 Los Angeles Times, Page 1, “Honoring the Fallen.”.

And to gain even more perspective and a little education go to: PTSD – Hello in There

Management is about doing what can be seen and executing it well;
Leadership is about envisioning what can’t be seen that spontaneously enrolls people to make it happen.

- Ivan Rosenberg, CEO, Frontier Associates

When America was born it had before it the tremendous opportunity to utilize massive untapped resources, a desire to explore the unknown mindset, an eagerness to be educated and develop the necessary skills to be successful, and a chance to build a new infrastructure without being mired by the outdated ones supporting Europe and Asia.

For most of the past 400 years (dating back to 1620) America has made the most of that opportunity. An analogy is how most law firms or investment firms are similarly opportunistic and mostly transactional (find the client/deal, do the case/deal, next – and bigger and more profitable – case/deal). The problem is that America (and possibly law firms and investment firms) and its mindset, skillset, and infrastructure have become outdated like those of the rest of the world when America was born.

Truth be told seizing an opportunity can get you into the game and win early and expand, but only developing the vision that Rosenberg mentioned at the top can keep you growing.

To Obama’s credit, he has been able to be transformational in his mindset and values. However he is surrounded by transactional and often non-cooperative players. His vision of more jobs (to stem the panic and give fearful out-of-work people something purposeful to do instead of just spinning their wheels), be more energy efficient (America and the rest of the world have not been too kind to the Earth), have better health service (unhealthy people tend to withdraw and not participate) and improve education (we need to go from a “what will it get me” educational myopia to “learning is fun”) is one that can enroll Americans to make happen.

His biggest challenge will be in transforming the American mindset from “all about me” to “all about us” (still not global minded and us vs. them) to “all about we” (becoming communally proactive vs. reactive).*

In essence, how to stop looking for a competitive advantage and replace it with a Collaborative Advantage.

*The best guide that I know for doing this and something that should be on Obama’s short list is Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fisher-Wright.

Visit Dr. Mark Goulston at www.markgoulston.com

SPECIAL OFFER TO USABLE INSIGHT COMMUNITY: December 11, 2-3:30 PM EST, 1-2:30 PM CST, 11-12:30 PM PST. Your chance to go from bright and smart to wise.  Listen with your teams to “Moving from Managing to Leading” a live webinar where Mark Goulston will interview Warren Bennis and take your questions. Use this link  Usable Insight to get a $50 discount off the regular fee of $349 when you register.

As heard at: Papertrain Your Problem Relatives for the Holiday
compliments of:

An ounce of flattery
will get you a well behaved guest.

Do you have any relatives or friends that ruin everyone’s time on Thanksgiving or Christmas and you can’t un-invite them? Do you feel guilty at wishing they’ll either have other plans or be too sick to come? Do you wish there was a way to papertrain them so they don’t mess on everyone else’s good time?

Here is how using a little applied emotional intelligence can save the day. One thing most of these high-maintenance (easy to upset, difficult to please) people have in common is that they feel as if the world is not treating them well enough. In essence they don’t feel important or special enough in the world (usually because their awful personality has gotten in the way of success which they are bitter about).

This is where thinking ahead and using the “i” (as in “important”) word can do wonders.

Have the male of the house that is doing dinner call these problem people 5 to 7 days ahead of time and say to them: “I’m calling to ask you a favor because you’re a very important part of our holiday gatherings (i.e. “because we haven’t figured out how to keep you from coming or shut you up”). Many of us don’t see or even talk to each other except for these holidays and you never know who’s really having a bad time with a terrible illness, a recent death, or some big financial problems. So these gathering can be very awkward and since you are such a consistent and important guest I was hoping you might be able to greet people when they come in, and help pull them out of their shell by asking them how they and their family are doing and about anything new that’s been going on with them.”

Having the male of the house do something so forward thinking and so gracious (it’s not that often that a man asks for help or directions) and also giving these people who feel so cheated by life the chance to feel important is not only quite flattering, it is disarming. The problem person is going to have trouble responding with his/her real modas operandi, i.e. “No thanks. I was planning on coming and ruining everyone’s time like I do every year.”

Then when Thanksgiving or Xmas dinner occurs, this same male should greet that person at the door, touch them on the arm and say: “I hope I can count on you to help make people feel comfortable after they arrive.” Then add before they can respond, “Oh, excuse me. I have to go take care of some things.”

This may not stop a dyed in the wool jerk from spoiling the holidays, but it may serve as a deterrent.

Check out Be Grateful Then Mulitply and Thanksgiving foreplay.

And in case people are too afraid to get into being thankful check out Don’t Panic. and have people try the advice that Bob Eckert, CEO of Mattel follows to stay on track.

© 2008 Mark Goulston

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