Improve Yourself 11: Practice the 9 Keys to Better Relations

This continues our series on how to improve yourself to get the biggest raises and best promotions

Bryan developed great business relations with those around him. His reputation as a connector drew people to him for advice and and networking. He seemed to know everybody. They respected his expertise and willingness to support and serve others. He helped people build their business, turn around failing businesses, or create exit strategies that allowed owners to make great money. He learned and practiced the 9 keys of relationship outlined by Jared and Sarah Stewart in City of Influence.

Every Opportunity Has It’s Root in a Relationship

We’ve posted multiple times  about Jared and Sarah Stewart’s book City of Influence. Jared first introduced me to the keys of relationships 8 years ago. I have read it every year between Christmas and New Year’s Eve since it was first published in 2008. The book offers an easy read teaching it’s principles in a simple tale that requires about 3.5 hours to read.

I’ve verified some of the basic premises of the book multiple times. Some of their assumptions include:

• People do business with people they know, like, and trust
• Every opportunity has it’s root in a relationship
  • Ray Kroc built McDonald’s based on 3 key relationships
  • Roy Disney’s relationship with Ub Iwerks helped create Mickey Mouse
  • The founders of Google and their relationship with John Doerr

The 9 Keys to Better Relationships

Sarah and Jared outline 9 keys to building business relationships. Practicing these keys will help you develop the kind of relationships that will increase your influence. Paradoxically, the key to increasing your influence is serving others and not self-centered interests. As a result of serving others, more people serve you. You feel more fulfilled.

The 9 keys to relationships include:

• Business is about relationships
• Avoid relationship arrogance
• Develop relationships just because
• Learn, Serve, Grow
• Bricks trump sticks
• Exit the coliseum
• Swim in pools
• Measure relationships
• Decide to govern

I really encourage you to buy and read this book.

Friday we discuss how improving work skills increases your worth and value to companies

This blog will improve as you submit comments, questions, and experiences. We will answer your questions in future blog posts. Please submit your comments and questions so we can answer them.

Improve Yourself 10: Refine Your Communication Skills

This continues our series on improving yourself to get the biggest raises and the best promotions

Jacob grew up a very quiet child. He spent most of his youth playing video games and surfing the Internet. He home-schooled with his two brothers. He enjoyed solitude, sculpting, and reading. As a result, he did not develop strong conversational or verbal communication skills. He volunteered at a local community program where the staff helped him develop this crucial skill. They coached and encouraged him. They engaged him in conversations. They assigned him to call clients of the program. Within a year he improved his conversational skills. The skills prepared him for a new job and a better career.

Importance of Conversations

Conversation and verbal communication are disappearing from the workplace. A generation or two of workers grew up texting, emailing, playing interactive online or video games. Companies discover many employees cannot maintain business or casual conversations with clients, co-workers, or supervisors.

Improving your conversations may be one of the most important changes you make. Communication and conversations affect your work, your reputation, your co-workers, and your family. You may need to improve the following aspects of how you communicate:

• Your tone of voice may sound more timid, harsh, or contentious than you believe
• Your face may express happiness, anger, frustration, deceit, humor, or sincerity
• Your words may confuse, upset, hurt, clarify, communicate, or demean

Suggestions for Conducting Crucial Conversations

We have posted before about the concepts taught in Crucial Conversations written by Kerry Patterson and his colleagues at VitalSmarts. We strongly recommend you

• Read Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
• Sign-up for the free resources on the VitalSmarts book section
• Watch the videos listed on the free resources site
• Watch the webinars listed on the site
• Let the questions on the PDF probe your understanding of the material
• Study the model graphic, hang it somewhere to prompt you as needed
• Discuss the tools outlined in Crucial Conversations with others
• Practice the tools repeatedly to perfect them

Wednesday we explore how to the 9 keys to improve your business relationships

This blog will improve as you submit comments, questions, and experiences. We will answer your questions in future blog posts. Please submit your comments and questions so we can answer them.

Improve Yourself 9: Grapple with Impossible Situations

This continues our series on improving yourself to get the biggest raises and best promotions

Terry headed a division assigned to increase production by 1,000% a year over 3 years. Part of the strategy involved opening 62 operations in 30 countries in a 3 year period. Another part of the strategy included providing training to clients. Terry and his team needed to find a way to prepare trainers in each operation. He and his team “grappled” with the idea and found a solution. They trained university students how teach it and sent them to spend 6 months in each location—at their own expense—to train other trainers. Terry and his team met their goal within 3 years.

Grapple to Find Impossible Solutions

Develop problem solving skills. Your ability to solve problems increases your worth in the workplace. Gordon B. Hinckley wrote in Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes: 

“The learning process is endless. We must read, we must observe, we must assimilate, and we must ponder that to which we expose our minds. I believe in the evolution of the mind, the heart and the soul of humanity. I believe in improvement. I believe in growth. There is nothing quite as invigorating as being able to evaluate and then solve a difficult problem, to grapple with something that seems almost unsolvable and then find a resolution.”

Keys to Solving Unsolvable Problems

Hinckley states some profound concepts in this short paragraph:

• Believe in improvement, growth and the evolution of the mind, heart, and spirit of humanity to improve yourself
• Improvement requires that you ponder and think about what you learn
• Invigorate your mind by grappling with difficult challenges and solve them

My parents taught us to exercise our minds with brain teasing games. For example, Dad would hold up a 5”x10”x2” sponge with 12 holes in it, and ask “What is this?”. The person who created the most answers won the game. This, and similar exercises, honed our creativity and problem-solving skills.

Monday we discuss how you can improve your communication skills with people

This blog will improve as you submit comments, questions, and experiences. We will answer your questions in future blog posts. Please submit your comments and questions so we can answer them.

Improve Yourself 8: You Can Learn Parts of How to Lead

This continues our series how to improve yourself to get the biggest raises & best promotions

Sharon portrayed natural leadership. She listened to people with her full attention. She inspired people to better performance and greater vision. People stretched to achieve her expectations.  She enjoyed a great reputation in the organization and in the world. Employees from other departments flocked to work for her. While she worked hard in her career to improve her leadership skills, she also possessed a knack for leadership.

Great Lessons on Leadership

Dr. Timothy Clark writes and teaches about leadership in his column for the Deseret News, his books The Leadership Test and Epic Change, and presentations. You may improve yourself by learning and practicing leadership skills taught by great authors:

• Stephen R. Covey: Principle Centered Leadership & 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Jim Collins: Good to Great and Built to Last
• Bill George: True North How to Find Your Authentic Leadership
• Timothy R. Clark: The Leadership Test and Epic Change
• John Wooden: Wooden on Leadership
• Sun Tzu: The Art of War
• Warren Bennis: On Becoming a Leader
• Niccolo Machiavelli: The Prince
• Liz Wiseman: Multipliers
• Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People

Some Things You May Not Learn

Timothy R. Clark says

“Can you learn to be a leader? Much of it can be learned. But some of it can’t be taught. How can I teach you more tolerance for ambiguity and risk? How can I teach you to challenge conventional wisdom? How can I give you the makeup and disposition to push boundaries and thinking? How can I convince you that it’s time to create a disturbance in your organization because people are under the false assumption that the organization competes on a global standard? How do you know when you’re stretching people appropriately or just being a jerk? I can teach you principles. I can give you tools. We can go through some case studies. But that’s as far as I can go. You take it from here.”

Friday we review another of Dr. Timothy R. Clark’s lessons on leadership

This blog will improve as you submit comments, questions, and experiences. We will answer your questions in future blog posts. Please submit your comments and questions so we can answer them.

Improve Yourself 7: Managing Differs from Leading

This continues our series on improving yourself to get the biggest raises & best promotions

Mitchell managed operations very well. He proved his management skills repeatedly in different operations throughout the global corporation that employed him. As a result, he rose within the organization to upper management. Unfortunately, his last promotion placed him in an executive position requiring leadership skills he did not possess. He failed to establish or maintain a vision for the division he led. He also could not inspire greater performance from his operations. He was a good manager who could not lead.

Dr. Timothy R. Clark Lessons on Leadership

I recently heard Dr. Timothy R. Clark discuss leadership. I had heard him previously shortly after he published The Leadership Test. I blogged about him at that time. His presentation inspired me to blog about him again. I will spend the next three posts sharing the ideas he presented. As always, I encourage you to read and study his books, column, and attend one of his presentations.

First, let me introduce Dr. Clark. His biography for a column he writes for the Deseret News states:

“Timothy R. Clark, Ph.D., is an author, international management consultant, former two-time CEO, Fulbright Scholar at Oxford University and Academic all-American football player at BYU. His latest two books are "The Leadership Test" and "Epic Change." E-mail: trclark@trclarkpartners.com”

Difference Between Management & Leadership

Dr. Clark shared insight about leadership. I share one today, and encourage you to read his column on this subject titled Leadership is Greater than Management. He teaches one difference between the two:

“Leaders are paid to maintain competitive advantage. It’s their job to hold court with the status quo and overthrow it when necessary. Managers preserve. Leaders disturb. Managers follow the script. Leaders write the script. Managers deal with facts. Leaders deal with possibilities. Managers create value today. Leaders create value tomorrow. Managers can run things on the compliance of other people. Leaders can only run things on the commitment of other people. If not, they cease to lead.”

Wednesday we review Timothy Clark’s observation about learning leadership 

This blog will improve as you submit comments, questions, and experiences. We will answer your questions in future blog posts. Please submit your comments and questions so we can answer them.

Improve Yourself 6: Erase Confusion & Set Higher Goals

This continues our series on improving your self to get the biggest raises & best promotions

Ben lost his job as a sales executive two years ago. He struggled to know who he was without a job. When people asked what he did for a living, he responded “I’m between jobs” rather than “I manage sales teams to increase sales and improve client relations.” We helped him to regain his professional identity as a sales manager. Once he knew, he found a great job as a sales manager within 5 weeks.

Confusion May Prevent Progress

We conclude our analysis of Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s speech You Can Do It Now! He said

“One of the…methods to prevent us from progressing is to confuse us about who we really are and what we really desire.

We want to spend time with our children, but we also want to engage in our favorite manly hobbies. We want to lose weight, but we also want to enjoy the foods we crave. We want to become Christ-like, but we also want to give the guy who cuts us off in traffic a piece of our mind.

Focus on Higher Purposes to Succeed

He continues

“Another method…to discourage us from rising up is to make us see the [good and helpful] as things that have been forced upon us. I suppose it is human nature to resist anything that does not appear to be our own idea in the first place.

If we see healthy eating and exercise as something only our doctor expects of us, we will likely fail. If we see these choices as who we are and who we want to become, we have a greater chance of staying the course and succeeding.”

“When our attention is mainly focused on our daily successes or failures, we may lose our way, wander, and fall. Keeping our sights on higher goals will help us become better sons and brothers, kinder fathers, and more loving husbands,” [including better jobs and careers.]

Monday we will share some lessons from Timothy Clark on how to lead more effectively

This blog will improve as you submit comments, questions, and experiences. We will answer your questions in future blog posts. Please submit your comments and questions so we can answer them.

Improve Yourself 5: Let Failure Lead You to Change

This continues our series on improving yourself to get the biggest raises & best promotions

Paul had a promising career in management. Unfortunately, he made a major mistake at work one day creating what one worker perceived as a hostile workplace. The company’s zero-tolerance policy required they terminate him. He had not held a responsible job in five years. He wouldn’t let go of what he felt was the injustice of it. He retold the story every time we met. It didn’t make him happy. He didn’t learn from it. He relived that experience so often that it defined his identity.

Becoming Champions Requires Getting Up From Failure

In the last post, we explained that you will make mistakes. We all do. We also highlighted that sometimes we let that failure derail us and make us think that we are destined to fail. This continues our review of a speech given by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, an aviation executive and Church leader. He said

“No one likes to fail. And we particularly don’t like it when others—especially those we love—see us fail. We all want to be respected and esteemed. We want to be champions. But we mortals do not become champions without effort and discipline or without making mistakes…our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we rise up, dust ourselves off, and move forward.”

Let Mistakes and Failure Lead You to Change

Dieter Uchtdorf highlights two possible responses to failure and mistakes. He says

“That does not mean that we should be comfortable with our weaknesses, mistakes, or sins. But there is an important difference between the sorrow for [mistakes or failure] that leads to [change] and the sorrow that leads to despair.”

Santana taught “He that does not learn from the past is doomed to repeat it.” You can learn from your mistakes and change

• How you act
• How you think
• Your personality
• Your conversations and confrontations
• Your perspectives and paradigms

Great books teach you how.

Friday we  share Dieter Uchtdorf’s suggestions about what to do with change

This blog will improve as you submit comments, questions, and experiences. We will answer your questions in future blog posts. Please submit your comments and questions so we can answer them.