Be The Full Jigsaw

Be The Full Jigsaw

"There is no such thing as a perfect leader, either in the past or present, in China or elsewhere. If there is one, he is only pretending, like a pig inverting spring onions into his nose in an effort to look like an elephant".

-Liu Shao-Chi

It may be true that there is no such thing as the perfect leader - leaders are human, after all. However, that is not to say that people who hold leadership positions should not continually seek to improve their leadership skills.

In order to measure managers' leadership capabilities we need to identify what are the essential qualities of an effective leader. In my view they are six in number:

? A Leader is a visionary

? A Leader sets an example

? A Leader understands what motivates each team member

? A Leader builds supportive relationships

? A Leader empowers others to reach their potential

? A Leader understands the power of communications

These are the six components that each leader must work hard at continually and consistently applying and, most importantly, demonstrating in all he or she does. Think of it as a jigsaw - The Leadership Jigsaw.

Unless all six pieces are in place, the leader will not achieve his or her potential, nor will those looking to following their leader. No one aspiring to lead a high-performing team can do so if they are `one piece short of a jigsaw'! Let's consider each piece in a little more detail.

VISION.

Leadership involves taking people on a journey, but if people are to follow it must not be a journey into the unknown. Such destinations may work for Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise but they will not work for modern-day leaders with their feet placed firmly on terra-firma! A person holding a leadership position without a clear vision, or the ability to communicate one effectively, will be heading into darkness (probably alone!). When leaders express their vision in a way that touches their followers, they invite strong commitment: a common purpose that focuses people on a shared, mutually beneficial objective.

"A leader shapes and shares a vision which gives point to the work of others"

-Charles Handy

EXAMPLE. People respect and follow leaders whose behaviour mirrors their words; they have no respect for leaders who say one thing and do another. "Do as I say, not as I do" is simply not good enough.Leaders should, therefore, look hard into the mirror and consider what they see. They should ask themselves: "Do I lead in
such a way that I would willingly follow myself? You can be sure of one thing: you may not be continually assessing your performance as a leader, but your followers will be! They will be watching your every move and taking a lead from you.

The leaders acts as though everyone is watching, even when no-one is
watching"

-Brian Tracy

MOTIVATION.

Truly great leaders understand their followers: they understand their needs, their dreams, their fears, their emotions - what `makes them tick'. People need to believe that they are playing their part and successful leaders ensure that they receive the recognition their efforts deserve. In my experience of working with junior managers across the country, a belief that they are not valued for their efforts is one of the most commonly found demotivators.

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it"

-Dwight D. Eisenhower

RELATIONSHIP.

It is axiomatic that a leader needs followers - a team of people working together towards a common aim. A culture of trust must exist between all members, at all levels, with the leader providing the shining example for all to follow.

Notwithstanding the fundamental changes forced upon organisations in recent years, some departments are still led by managers who busy themselves interfering in the work of their subordinates; are unwilling to share information; and insist on sanctioning every decision. Yet if the modern leader's challenge is to make optimum use of fewer resources (and it is!) this will only happen if people
are encouraged to participate in an open, positive environment based upon mutually-supportive relationships.

"All your strength is in your union.
All your danger is in discord"

-Henry Longfellow
The Song of Hiawatha

EMPOWERMENT.

Enlightened leaders understand that most people naturally want to better themselves and, given the appropriate support and encouragement, will grasp the opportunity to acquire new skills and knowledge. They also realise that the key to getting the best out of people is to give them responsibility for their own actions, rather than creating an environment of control and mistrust. Such leaders are willing to delegate aspects of their role to their subordinates when the situation allows and, moreover, are prepared to empower them to take decisions themselves, within parameters, without recourse to higher authority.

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you will help them to become what they are capable of being"

-Goethe

COMMUNICATION.

Whilst all managers, without exception, would preach the importance of effective communications, not all practice what they preach. But, yet again, it is the leader who should lead the way by his or her example.

Productive communications are built upon understanding between all parties. A leader who is prepared to get out and `walk the talk' will be in a far better position to both reinforce the vision, and hear how it is being received, than one who remains desk-bound. There are few more potent motivating actions a leader can take than to make the effort to speak to front-line workers and to ask "how
are things going?", and mean it!

"A leader is someone who knows what she wants to achieve and how to
communicate it"

-Margaret Thatcher

THE MESSAGE? The message is that true leaders need to be proficient in a wide range of essential skills that can be represented by The Leadership Jigsaw. Those holding leadership positions should measure themselves against this model of excellence to ensure that they are not `one piece short of a jigsaw'.

About the Author:
The Leadership Jigsaw is a model of leadership best practice created by Alan Cutler, a leadership writer, motivational speaker and mentor. For more details of how Alan can develop the leadership skills of your managers see www.hospitalityleadership.com, or contact him on alan@hospitalityleadership.com. Full details of The Leadership Jigsaw are contained in his book, `One Piece Short of a Jigsaw', obtainable from www.leadershiptalks.com

Bad to the Bone: Dealing With a Bad Boss

The Unwitting Bad Boss
You're weary. You're frustrated. You're unhappy. You're de-motivated. Your interaction with your boss leaves you cold. He's a bully, intrusive, controlling, picky or petty. He takes credit for your work, never provides positive feedback and misses each meeting he schedules with you. Or he caves immediately under pressure and fails to support you in accomplishing your job.

He's a bad boss, bad to the bone. Dealing with a less than effective manager, or just plain bad managers and bad bosses, is a challenge too many employees face. No matter the character of your bad boss, these ideas will help you deal with your bad boss.

Does the Bad Boss Know?
Start your campaign by understanding that your boss may not know he is bad. Just as in situational leadership, the definition of "bad" depends on the employee's needs, the manager's skills and the circumstances.

A hands-off manager may not realize that his failure to provide any direction or feedback makes him a bad boss.

He may think he's empowering his staff. A manager who provides too much direction and micromanages may feel insecure and uncertain about his own job. He may not realize his direction is insulting to a competent, secure, self-directed staff member.

Or, maybe the boss lacks training and is so overwhelmed with his job requirements that he can't provide support for you. Perhaps he has been promoted too quickly or his reporting responsibilities have expanded beyond his reach. In these days of downsizing, responsibilities are often shared by fewer staff members than ever before.

This bad boss may not share your values. The newer generation of workers expect that they can use their vacation time and take action to make work-life balance a priority. Not all bosses share these views. If your values are out of sync with those of your boss, you do have a problem.

Recommended Approach to the Unwitting Bad Boss

• Talk to this boss. Tell him what you need from him in term of direction, feedback and support. Be polite and focus on your needs. Telling the boss he's a bad boss is counterproductive and won't help you meet your goals.

• Ask the manager how you can help him reach his goals. Make sure you listen well and provide the needed assistance.

• Seek a mentor from among other managers or more skilled peers, with the full knowledge of your current manager, to enlarge your opportunity for experience.

• If you've taken these actions, and they haven't worked, go to your boss's manager and ask for assistance. Or, you can go to your Human Resources staff first, to rehearse and gain advice. Understand that your current boss may never forgive you, so ensure you have done what you can do with him, before taking your issues up the line.

• You may never hear what the boss's boss or the HR staff did to help solve your bad manager's behavior. It's confidential. But, do allow some time to pass for the actions to have their desired impact.

• If nothing changes, despite your best efforts, and you think the problem is that they don't believe you, draw together coworkers who also experience the behavior. Visit the boss's manager to help him see the size and impact of the behavior.

• If you think the problem is that your boss can't – or won't – change, ask for a transfer to another department. This recommendation presumes you like your employer and your work.

Attract Clients With Your Business Card

Let's say you attend a business function. You meet a top tier prospect, and give her your card. Twenty other people do the same thing. So what will make your card stand out from the collected stack?

Here are twelve ways to assure that prospects will read your card, and will become more likely to do business with you.

ONE: Keep your card "reader friendly" by providing ample white space. Unfortunately, we are tempted to jam as much information on the card as the printer can squeeze in.

However, people don't want to bog down by reading lengthy paragraphs. Note how short this one is, and the one before it. Easy to read, don't you think?

TWO: Display your photo on your card. Think what happens when the prospect you met at the reception flips through the cards she collected. Which people will she remember most easily? The ones with photos, of course. For many years, real estate pros have acted on this assumption, and they are right.

An important caution: Be sure to use a recent picture, no more than five years old. The person who uses an outdated picture raises suspicion. What else about them is obsolete or misrepresented? That's why I had a photographer take a new photo of me, which I will put on my business card and Web site soon.

THREE: Stick with a standard size. You want your card to fit the card collections others maintain. An odd-shaped card might be tossed away as too cumbersome to keep.

FOUR: Never economize on paper stock. The dollars you save won't compare with the dollars you will miss out on because prospects think you may be second rate, like your card.

FIVE: Spend what is needed to include color. Think about it—how many of your potential clients have black and white TV, cameras and magazines?

Avoid psychedelic colors unless you are a designer, artist or entertainer. Your color photo will reflect a warm, vivid personality, so there's no need to shock the senses of readers.

SIX: Include your slogan. My company slogan identifies my purpose: "Helping you finish in first place!" Six words are enough--if they are the right words.

SEVEN: If you have a logo, use it. Picture this in your mind: "Golden Arches." Know the product? I am sure you do. Did you salivate? Probably so. That's the power of symbols.

My logo is a winner's trophy, which fits my motto of helping organizations and individuals finish first. Matches my company name as well: Championship Communication.

EIGHT: Tell readers how to contact you by phone, fax, mail and Internet. This sounds elementary, yet you would be surprised at how many marketers omit this essential data.

NINE: Keep your card current, by printing new ones when you change your office location, phone number or e-mail address. When someone gives you a business card with a new number added in pen, you rate their work second class, or worse.

TEN: Use both sides of your card for information. No need to let half the space go unutilized.

Consider putting your statement of mission on the reverse side. Then you can refer to that when you meet with prospects.

ELEVEN: When you give your card to a potential client, don't offer just one. Instead, ask: "How many of these will you need, to share with your staff?" You will be amazed at how many more cards you will put into circulation with this simple question.

TWELVE: You may want to distribute more than one card, with each card reflecting a different service you offer. Several years ago, a retired executive handed me three business cards, each representing a new venture he had launched, with distinct services provided.

Attitude Is Everything

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.

"Yes it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life."

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the estaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers.

While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local rauma center.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place.

"The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.

Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

Anticipating customer queries in call centers

An effort to determine the value of specific kinds of customer inquiries shows how companies should decide which channels are best for dealing with each of them.
Raffaella Bianchi
2007 Number 4

Situation
Companies seeking to improve the performance and contain the costs of their call centers by automating customer service interactions enjoy a growing array of options-including e-mail, Web sites, online chat, and voice recognition systems. Deciding what and how to automate is challenging, though, since companies that do so excessively risk alienating their customers and forgoing the revenue opportunities generated by agents. A telecommunications company faced this problem as it investigated ways to ease the pressure on its overwhelmed call centers.
Complication
The company's managers had detailed information about the potential value of various types of customers but didn't know the value of each kind of incoming call, though they suspected that the value of different ones could vary significantly. A customer calling to learn about new products might be open to buying additional services, for example, but the same customer, calling a week later to complain about spotty wireless coverage, would likely be less so. Without knowing the potential value of each inquiry, the managers couldn't determine the best channel for handling it.

Resolution
In response, the company categorized inquiries by mapping their volume and type against the revenues they produced. It found that six kinds of queries accounted for 60 percent of its total call volume but generated 75 percent of its additional profits,

making such queries candidates for live interactions with agents. The company then considered which types of calls were easiest to automate, and it introduced automated systems to route low-value inquiries by category whenever possible. Managers also developed processes for starting calls with live agents and then moving customers to a detail
Implications
The principles underlying the telecom company's analysis of its incoming call-center queries are relevant for businesses making trade-offs between the costs and potential benefits of customer calls much more varied than those the telco received. Business-to-business suppliers, for example, must determine which customer needs merit a live salesperson, a service technician, or a key account team and which can be met effectively through lower-cost Web-based options. Understanding the value of each kind of interaction helps a company boost its revenues by meeting its customers' most exacting needs and sales potential more successfully. And by reducing overall sales and service costs, a company can ensure that resources aren't wasted on interactions with low sales potential and for which customers don't value high-touch treatment.

An Inspirational Story, Motivational Story - The Hospital Window

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.

Every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed began to live for those one-hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.

As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man couldn't hear the band - he could see it. In his mind's eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.

Days and weeks passed.

One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.

As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed.

It faced a blank wall. The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.

The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall. She said, "Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you."

Epilogue:
There is tremendous happiness in making others happy, despite our own situations.

Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled.
If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can't buy.
Today is a gift, that's why it is called the present.

An Inspirational Story, Motivational Story - Each Day Is A Gift

The 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud lady, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, with her hair fashionably coifed and makeup perfectly applied, even though she is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today.

Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary.

After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready.

As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window. "I love it," she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

"Mrs. Jones, you haven't seen the room .... just wait."

"That doesn't have anything to do with it," she replied. "Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged, it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I'll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I've stored away, just for this time in my life."

She went on to explain, "Old age is like a bank account, you withdraw from what you've put in. So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories Thank you for your part in filling my Memory bank. I am still depositing."

And with a smile, she said:

"Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less."