“Silence is not an option in social media” – C.C. Chapman
Even if it is not directly your fault, apologize for it anyway.
“No, you no longer control your brand and yes, you’re still 100% responsible for its success” – Duane Primozich
Intent matters; people are more likely to forgive an honest mistake.
Apologize, don’t justify.
Identify the steps that are being (or will be) taken to fix the problem.
Pick the right medium for you to be most effective. A well written apology trumps a badly delivered video message.
Continuously monitor all social and non-social channels so you can continue to address the issue further if needed.
Step number one is, as it should be, the most important part of the entire apology. While insisting you’ll do things differently may buy some time, the fall will be all the worse later if you don’t actually fix the root of the problem.
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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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In my last post, I discussed the positive effects of gratitude. During this time of Thanksgiving, it is easy for us to be thankful for the things in our life that we love and enjoy. However, how often do we show gratitude and give thanks for the things that were difficult for us or for things that were unpleasant? It reminds of the commonly used notion of Feedback as a gift. As much as it is, it can be hard to realize it when the gift you are receiving is negative or unflattering.
There are so many things that occur throughout our days that may seem unpleasant and negative. Especially in the field of Human Resources. We often find ourselves handling some of the most negative things in business. These situations are often intermingled throughout our week or our day with the more positive side of working with people. Throughout this dance of moving from the positive to the negative, the HR professional maintains the correct emotional composure and makes the job seem easy despite the number of people who say, “I could never do that.” or “How do you give such terrible news?” And I would bet for many HR pros, there may have been a time, when they said the same thing.
So today, I would like to give thanks and show gratitude for the difficult things that developed my ability to move through the HR moments a little better than I would have years ago. I also give thanks to challenges that I was given that helped me grow and develop my skills in other things as well.
Here’s a short list of what I am grateful for:
I am thankful the first termination meeting I had with a former peer. Shortly after being promoted, I realized I had to terminate a respected peer who was often able to get stellar results. Unfortunately, the results weren’t always achieved by following the rules. That meeting took an hour and it was painful for everyone involved. Afterward, I got the gift of great feedback from a seasoned HR professional who served as a witness.
I am thankful for two trainers I encountered at a conference years ago, for pushing me out of my comfort zone and making me practice for hours the art of coaching verses managing. The art of asking verses telling. And for reminding me that it is okay to have fun at work and celebrate success.
I am thankful for the promotions and/or jobs that I didn’t get. These forced me to look inside of myself to see what I needed to do differently.
I am thankful for every piece of feedback that I was given especially the ones that evoked that defensive protective emotion.
Sheri Mazurek is a training and human resource professional with over 16 years of management experience, and is skilled in all areas of employee management and human resource functions, with a specialty in learning and development. She is available to help you with your Human Resources and Training needs on a contract basis. For more information send an email to smazurek0615@gmail.com or visit www.sherimazurek.com. Follow me on twitter @Sherimaz.
How a dose of negativity can help your organization
The natural reaction for most people when they start seeing negative sentiment about their organization arise is panic. Do I respond? Do I duck and hide? And most of all…how bad is this going to hurt?
Truth is, the more devoted your stakeholders are, the more flak you will take when you mess up, or at least are perceived to. In a PRDaily article, marketing expert and Georgetown U professor Rohit Bhargava shared his thoughts about how haters can help your business:
1. Haters expose vulnerability. No business is perfect and haters sometimes have valid points. It requires an open mind to focus on the heart of a complaint and ignore the emotionally charged aspects. Doing so will hone in on the things you really need to fix and make your business stronger.
2. Haters can be converted. There are many types of haters who may cross your path. The most frequent type isn’t the one who will passionately hate your business forever, but rather someone who has had a negative experience of some kind. If you can find a way to fix that experience and make it right, that same person can be transformed into your biggest advocate.
3. Haters bring attention. Although I don’t believe “any publicity is good publicity,” the fact is that when you have people actively talking about how bad or pathetic your business is, it can add visibility. If you can find the right ways to counter the negativity, that attention can actually become a good thing.
4. Haters publicize frequently asked questions. If you have a FAQ page on your website, you will realize the power that answering frequently asked questions can have for giving potential customers an idea not just of what you do … but also what you don’t do.
5. Haters validate social media efforts. If you have been actively using social media, the goodwill that you may have built up with your fans and friends comes in handy when haters appear. The people you have invested time in building relationships with will often stick up for your brand and fight on your side.
Just as we commonly say about crisis situations, strong organizations can actually turn negative attention into positive. Of course, all of this goes out the window if you aren’t actively moving to fix the problems that are bringing the hate in the first place. The overall reason that negative attention can be beneficial is that it gives you a way to demonstrate how much you care about your stakeholders. If you can’t convince them of that, you’re in trouble.
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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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We need to fit in a workplace that has people there who come from a very different place, but if we can communicate… If we can do that, we can consider ourselves proudly, not just survivors but thrivers.
I am thankful for the opportunity to share what I think is one of the most important topics to society at large, to the world at large: good, clear, effective communication among us all.
I am fortunate to teach at a fairly basic level as well as coach corporate executives and business professionals who speak as an important part of their jobs. The college-level students, to be sure, learn it as a necessity to get through the college curriculum (if they see no other value). As educated adults we forget we learned it all along and, as we get into our special interest areas, we may discover how important it is to work and life. That’s why I consider it basic. The students are just getting started; the executives (one-on-one) have realized their performance or approach needs constant tweaking for them to be consistently successful at public speaking, which in turns enables them to be successful in business. Still the same basic tenants apply. For me, one job pays considerably better, but perhaps more satisfaction in helping those realize the importance of good communication who don’t see it yet, and need it more.
This may seem a little off topic in the training world but it has to do with training or teaching public speaking and presenting, and more. So, judge for yourself.
The focus on the class is just as much on organizing and maximizing impact on the audience as it is in practicing, or even better–gaining experience speaking.
I teach two classes of public speaking as a visiting professor–one class made up of mostly black students who live or work in urban in Philadelphia, and the other a suburban community outside the city comprised of mostly white blue-collar workers working mostly on technical degrees.
For these classes, the entire idea of communication is irrelevant or relatively insignificant; and to some, because they are so smart in other areas, they believe it is something akin to basket weaving–a no-brainer course. It is my intent to prove them wrong. It is also a subject where just getting them to verbalize what they personally have to say is difficult. Both groups take the idea of adding “yourself” to a speech, essential in good speech-making, all too personal.
Although I am a professional communicator and speaker, I do not teach my class as a performance class. Since I am also a professional actor and speech coach, it is also ironic, however, here my roles and goals are different. I am a teacher and a coach. My goals are success training and communication–oftentimes working hand-in-hand.
The first part of the term is devoted to developing ideas and supporting them–writing clear objectives and organization to those objectives, and hopefully give impact to ideas and purpose. I consider the first half of the class a chance for them to practice. We do an introductory speech, a personal speech (to put them in the speech-this I may change to an exercise later that puts them in any subject they talk about) and a scripted speech to understand the difference between doing a speech that someone else writes and they write (they learn empathy). If students have to make-up a class, it involves writing, organizing and presenting to the class.
The focus on the class is just as much on organizing and maximizing impact on the audience as it is in practicing, or even better–gaining experience speaking. Practice is what you do in front of a mirror; experience is what you do in front of an audience.
In the beginning, I have students who are smooth in front of an audience but can’t organize worth a darn and students so shy they can barely look at me.
Second half of the class, my students are practiced and experienced, more comfortable speakers and have been instructed in the dos and don’ts of speaking as well as how to organize. Now they are ready for me to grade their informative speech, persuasive speech, and reflective or ceremonial speech; they are aware of how this works. I believe I am teaching them to communicate effectively rather than perform, but I am also teaching them to deal with their fear of speaking, among other things, and in the end they are all better speakers.
In the beginning, I have students who are smooth in front of an audience but can’t organize worth a darn and students so shy they can barely look at me. In the end, both groups hold their heads high, having accomplished what many thought was impossible–making a presentation and making a difference. It’s a great feeling for me, too.
My course is a variation of making a “mission impossible” for some, “an affair to remember.” We talk about knowing your audience, knowing your subject and knowing yourself. But in the end, it’s not just about public speaking; it never really was.
It’s about communicating–reaching out and touching someone else with ideas, facts and images to affect them personally and learning from your audience, from people, and interacting. It’s about making a difference. It’s about life and getting along, getting ahead. It’s about knowing others and yourself, and about being you.
In the end, both groups hold their heads high, having accomplished what many thought was impossible–making a presentation and making a difference.
It’s about fitting in everywhere, which is what humans do. In this vast world, man and woman has managed to live and survive, and often thrive despite the extreme climatic differences and geographic differences.
Effective communication with others has helped make that possible by the transfer of knowledge and fitting in where others lived before. (Granted the situations weren’t always ideal or morally correct. Hopefully, we’re better now.)
In the world closer to home, we still have to fit in with other people who may be very different from us in some ways but not so different in others.
We need to fit in the global economy, which means we need to understand cultural differences. That means analyzing our audience almost without thinking. We need to fit in a workplace that has people there who come from a very different place, but if we can communicate… If we can do that, we can consider ourselves proudly–not just survivors, but thrivers.
Other thoughts from the Cave Man of training and development are available on my website and in my book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. I look forward to your comments. Just a reminder, if you are looking for an unusual, down-to-earth and creative approach to training, I’m your Cave Man. I also coach executives in the fine art of charismatic public speaking to bring out the best in you and give your presentation or speech the most impact you can deliver. You’ll find details on my website. Meanwhile, happy training.
I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase: God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason – to listen first, then talk! So, as a leader, how good a listener are you?
Many people take their listening skills for granted. We often assume we’re listening and others know they are being heard. But many times that’s not the case. Then without warning there are misunderstandings, hurt feelings and conflicts that prevent people from working well together.
How many of these 10 behaviors can you say yes to? 1. I ‘m doing several things at once while others are talking to me.
2. I have a hard time concentrating on what is being said.
3. I am annoyed when someone slows me down.
4. I think what I want to say next rather than is being said.
5. I don’t like it when someone questions my ideas or actions.
6. I’m impatient waiting for the person to finish talking.
7. I give advice before the other has fully explained the situation.
8. I tend to talk significantly more than the other person talks.
9. I don’t know at the end of some conversations what it was about..
10. I’m uncomfortable and don’t know what to do if the speaker expresses emotions.
Scoring: 1-3: Take a bow. You appear to be a good listener. But don’t rest on your laurels. Continue being attuned to others
4-7: Push forward. You doing OK but can improve. Pick one or two of the above statements to work on and 1 or 2 of the tops below to practice.
8-10: Don’t lose hope. You can become a good listener. First it takes intention (realizing it’s an important skill for leaders ) and then practice (applying the tips below on a regular basis.).
How to boost listening skills: 1. Limit distractions. Silence technology and move away from distraction so that you can pay full attention to the other person. 2. Focus on the moment. Pay attention to what is being said, not what you want to say. Set a goal of being able to repeat the last sentence the other person says. 3. Be ok with silence. Count to ten or twenty before replying. The other person may continue and it also gives you a chance to collect your thoughts. 4. Ask before you tell. Encourage the other person to offer ideas and solutions before you give yours. And be open to other perspectives. 5. Summarize. Restate the key points to make sure what you heard are accurate. “You suggested……is that correct?” 6. Ask for clarification. If you don’t understand or are confused, don’t just nod your head and smile. “I’ve missed something, somewhere; can you go back to …” 7. Remember, follow the 80-20 rule. Do 80 percent of the listening and 20 percent of the talking.
Management Success Tip:
Listen actively to people around you, especially those who challenge your ideas. “I listen carefully even to the opinions that totally contradict my own beliefs. i want to make sure that when I make my decisions, I hadn’t missed anything.”
Many times when we are called on to introduce ourselves, we feel self-conscious or tongue-tied, and wish we could have a “do over.” It doesn’t have to be that way. Whenever you meet people for the first time, whether they are audience members, prospective customers or colleagues from other organizations, you’ll want to introduce yourself in a way that creates a positive first impression. Here are some tips on acing this part of your communication.
When introducing yourself:
Develop an elevator speech. Create two or three different self-intros you could use in different situations. Rehearse these out loud, preferably on video or with someone who can give you feedback. First impressions are so important you may not want to leave this to chance. Don’t try to memorize a script word for word, just work to increase your comfort and fluency.
Plan ahead. If you know you will be doing intros, think about the environment and the audience and decide which parts of your background will be most interesting and pertinent. Speak to those points, and don’t try to give your entire life history.
Listen while others speak. If everyone is introducing themselves, listen to them rather than thinking about what you are going to say. Give them the courtesy they deserve, and the gift of your focus. You won’t forget who you are.
Speak your name clearly and firmly. If it is unusual, spell it out or tell what it rhymes with. You will make yourself more memorable that way. You might even refer to your name one other time to cement it in their memories.
The law of three. Provide 2-3 brief facts about yourself, and include one personal fact, such as your passion for technology, or your love of travel. This can create a bridge to your audience, as long as you select a personal tidbit which might appeal to them, or at least one that won’t be offensive or off-putting.
Say it like you mean it. Use downward inflections, which sound certain, rather than upward inflections, which sound like questions. (“Hello? I am Susan Jones? and I work for Brown Packaging?”) Instead, state each sentence as an important, sure thing.
Be cool. Remember to relax, breathe, and smile, even if you are feeling uncomfortable. You are making new friends, not taking a test.
Remember that introducing yourself can be fun and easy if you stay calm and help put others at ease.
Has this happened to you? All along you thought you were doing fine. Then you get hit with this bomb from your boss: “Peter, we need to talk about your team. I’m concerned about……..”
As you listen to the criticism and your adrenaline starts to flow, pause – take a deep breath – and heed these three tactics:
1. Control your feelings whether anger or disappointment. We call it constructive criticism and it usually is. But it can also feel painful, embarrassing and personal. Recognize your initial feelings and then put them aside so the noise doesn’t crowd out your hearing.
2. Look beyond the delivery and listen to the message. Even if the feedback is delivered poorly, it doesn’t mean it’s not valuable and insightful. Not everything will be communicated in “I” statements, focused on behaviors and shared with compassion. Avoid confusing the package with the message.
3. Don’t agree or disagree. at this point. Just collect the data. Feedback is useful information about how someone perceives you or your situation, i.e. your team’s performance. Let go of the need to respond immediately, get into a listening mode and fully understand what is being said. Probe for more data. Ask for examples. Even ask for suggestions. Only then respond with your story and your facts. Then move into problem solving.
How to Respond?
If you feel you’ve been blind sighted by the criticism and you’re unsure how to respond, then what? It depends. If it’s from someone whom you don’t want to deal with right now, smile and say “Thank you for the insight, I’ll think about it carefully.” And then change the subject or politely leave the situation.
If it’s your boss, you can’t side step it. You need to deal with it. You can perhaps delay the discussion to later in the day or ask for 15 minutes to finish a crucial project. If that doesn’t work and it has to be now, then stop what you’re doing; turn off email, phone and messaging; take several deep breathes and clear you mind; and remember the above three ideas.
Career Success Tip:
When criticized, don’t turn on the immediate impulse to defend yourself, blame others or other negative behavior. Rather turn it into a learning experience. Pick out at least one thing that you will change so that you will become more effective in your job or in advancing your career.
Understanding collaboration begins with the definition of the word itself. Collaboration requires more than telling each other what we are doing (communication), is more involved than planning our work together (coordination) and it is also different from its most common substitute, cooperation (working or acting together for a common purpose or benefit). The definition I am using comes from the on-line source, Dictionary.com:
Collaboration: to work one with another, especially in a joint intellectual effort
Today we work in a world that requires collaboration because we are being called to think and act togetheras a collective. Collaboration is a struggle without the glue of clear common purpose and benefit (cooperation), the ability to plan face-to-face and with time to explore consequences and contingencies (coordination), and being co-located or even in the same time zone (which impacts communication), conditions that usually existed in the past.
Our communication is no longer that of lengthy letters, salons, and slow days of collegial contemplation and inquiry. We tweet and twitter, email, voice mail, socially meet on-line, have three concurrent meeting booked at work, wildly multi-task and communicate while driving, eating, playing – all the while wondering why real collaboration remains just out of reach. Check out any successful design company, they stress a collaborative style that is the equivalent of full body contact compared to that we see in Fortune 500 companies. How can we achieve this without wrinkling our suit? You guessed it – Design Thinking.
Design Thinking links your business to your stakeholders, especially your customers. Lockwood points out that design thinking is built on the concept of community – not job description, raw accountability, and silo departments. Community is not something that most business folks think about beyond corporate responsibility. Community, Peter Block and Meg Wheatley write eloquently on this subject, is a way of being together that recognizes all the stakeholders and the value they add to the work. Community identifies who your collaborative partners are and then invites them into the conversation. When we are aware of the community of practice (see Etienne Wenger’s work here) that supports our immediate work, we become aware of where the knowledge and expertise resides within our organizations. Using the graphic representation of Episodic Thinking (Figure 1), we can see how design thinking takes us on short periods of divergent exploration or quick periods of co-creation with key stakeholders without loosing track of the sequential backbone of the project or process.
Design Thinking uses rapid prototyping for products, processes, and ideas to unleash creativity and collaboration. Synergy is the name of the game in design thinking, consider every idea, product, or process half-baked when presented and suddenly someone can improve on it. When business operated solely in the simple and complicated domains of knowledge management, we could take our time and rely on “invented here” to guide us. Well, the world is now complex and in the words of Pixar cofounder Ed Catmull (HBR September 2008, p 65): “complex product development [requires] creativity [that] involves a large number of people from different disciplines working effectively together to solve a great many problems.” Rapid prototyping for Pixar occurs in the safe space of give-and-take conversations with the “brain trust;” eight directors who come together to support, challenge, and provide feedback to the team requesting their help. Catmull also points out the half-baked nature of rapid prototyping at Pixar, each day teams present their unfinished work to each other. This “liberates people to take risks and try new things because it doesn’t have to be perfect the first time.”
Design Thinking and Design Teams generate organizational resilience. When collaboration becomes the way we work and Episodic Thinking is a core competency, organizations can harvest adjacent spaces in the market, capture value outside of the product offer, and close the gap between customer and company. Agility, the result of organizational resilience, is the foundation for sustainability. Consider that both the jobs and the products we take for granted today didn’t exist 10 years ago. Who can predict what is needed for even the 5-year future? Without Design/Episodic Thinking our ability to be proactive in the volatile world we face is severely limited.
Next week the third aspect of Design Thinking: Communication.
Hopefully, over the last two weeks, you haven’t been cold calling, cold writing, sending “surprise” invitations or making “cold” visits to people who may or may not have been major gifts prospects. With that in mind, we’ll finish making the distinction between a “large” gift and a “major gift.”
If the person who suggested the “prospect” was close to him/her, just knew him/her in passing, knew him/her as someone who made large gifts to (local/similar) “charities,” or saw his/her name in some organization’s annual report, you must take that into consideration and make judgments as to whether this person is a “real prospect” — or just someone you wish was a prospect, and if it is worth making an investment — using resources that might be used more productively elsewhere.
Look at the time/energy/anticipation that you’ve put into this “drop-everything” effort — the time you took writing, calling, putting together those “nobody-reads-them-anyway” packets of materials, then writing and calling some more. Ask yourself if you could have made better use of your time/effort.
Does all this sounds familiar? Have you found yourself “dropping everything” because someone dropped a name? Have you experienced the frustration of getting “little” or nothing for all the efforts spent on that dropped name?
Would you like to be able to stay focused on “developing” those major gift prospects who give those major gifts?
Then, next time someone says you have to drop everything to go after some of that “guaranteed” money, ask yourself (and the name-dropper) if that individual meets the criteria, and if s/he then merits a change in your priorities.
A single major gift does not a Major Gifts Program make!! And, you can’t have a “program” if you don’t have a series of activities, a process, that defines the program.
Development is about building/enhancing/maintaining relationships in order to be able to attain fundraising goals. Make the investment in cultivating and involving prospects. Get them to a point where, when you ask for the gift, it won’t be “go away money.”
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Have a comment or a question about starting, evaluating or expanding your fundraising program? With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, I’ll be pleased to answer your questions. Contact me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Have you seen The Fundraising Series of ebooks ??
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= If you would like to comment/expand on the above, or would just like to offer your thoughts on the subject of this posting, we encourage you to “Leave a Reply” at the bottom of this page, click on the feedback link at the top of the page, or send an email to the author of this posting.
Graham worked as a management consultant assisting the national operations of a company that has grown over twenty years acquiring ‘non-family’ shareholders who now account for 40% of the capital. The founder’s son, who owns 10% of the shares, heads an overseas division and is a director. The founder retains the remaining 50% and is a ‘passive’ investor.
Graham’s work helped the company grow market share, revenue and profits. He was offered, and accepted, a board seat. He was elected unopposed at the next AGM. Graham performed little due diligence as he knew the domestic operations well and they account for most of the activity.
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