Building Circles is really all about Building Relationships both personally and professionally. Everyone builds relationships on a constant basis and they are built at different levels.
The two most important aspects for me are Honesty and Integrity. Both of these values apply to each relationship, however, there are times when one person may not fully share their agenda. This leads to the negotiation side of the business relationship.
All relationships are valued and respected. When an error is made or there is a misunderstanding, the strength of the relationship is weakened. Sometimes it is for the moment or for a short time and in rare occasions it lingers until the relationship is severed. We learn and we strive to improve with our experience.
Creating relationships in the "virtual" world is very difficult. Social Media channels such as LinkedIn and Facebook along with e-mails do not have any emotions. These virtual relationships exist and take on dynamics of their own!
Building Relationships daily with open discussions and creating win-win situations result in very strong, trusted relationships. You can rely on each other for more than the formal relationship. Sometimes it is advice either personal or business. Other times it is making a connection and making the introduction.
What are your keys to Building your Relationships?
Connecting business people to share stories of making new business relationships and creating opportunities.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
The Volunteer Hat Challenges
How much or how little do you volunteer? Do you volunteer in career-related organizations or for charity or both?
There are a number of volunteer hats I wear with a balance of career-related and charity groups. Each organization and group of people you work with provide a great opportunity to make connections and to help you grow as a person.
Several things happened this week to inspire this Blog. One was a lunch meeting with a colleague reaching out for business advice regarding his own business partnership. It was an honour for someone to be so vulnerable and seek advice. The reason he gave was observing what we have done as a company and what we have volunteered in providing an overall good balance to creating our brand. He mentioned the business community recognizes this and why he trusted our discussion would be worthwhile.
We had a meeting for over two hours this week with one of the organizations I volunteer on. Not our typical meeting and we had to hammer out a number of items. The biggest challenge was everyone knew the right thing to do and it was very difficult to have all of us agree on a plan of action. It was interesting to hear both sides of the story and to see the group agree to a two-step process instead of a one-step plan to execute immediately.
When you look around at the amount of time all these professionals are investing, it makes you wonder sometimes is it worth it? Some of us felt like it was time to throw in the towel. Once you set your emotions back in check, you realize quitting is the easy way out. The group was very supportive of each other and we are all moving forward together.
Being involved in a smaller group of five, it is easy to have a bit of a power struggle on leadership. The leader of this group sent out a very "frustrated" e-mail last night not being happy about how we are handling things and how we are doing our own thing. I took this very personal having just come out of the other group' marathon meeting probably did not help my reaction.
Since it was family time it was best to let my response wait. Read the message again, sent a reply stating sorry the leader feels we let him down and asked what I could do to help? His reply was the message was aimed at one specific person and had to send it to all of us. Yes I get that strategy and maybe another time/place may have fully grasped who it was meant for. Sent another response to support the leader and focus on our task at hand.
Focusing on the different personalities seems to be the biggest challenges wearing the volunteer hat. When we are working well together things run smooth, we contribute in a positive way and the organizations we support benefit and appreciate the volunteers.
What I have experienced to deal with the volunteer hat challenges: remember why we are volunteering and have to speak our peace openly and honestly. We also have to keep in mind it is not about anyone's agenda. It is OK to not always agree, however, once the discussion is over and a decision is made we all need to support it.
Enjoying being a leader and a supporter on various organizations to make a difference in our community. Thanks to all the volunteers who donate their personal time and may not always be appreciated.
There are a number of volunteer hats I wear with a balance of career-related and charity groups. Each organization and group of people you work with provide a great opportunity to make connections and to help you grow as a person.
Several things happened this week to inspire this Blog. One was a lunch meeting with a colleague reaching out for business advice regarding his own business partnership. It was an honour for someone to be so vulnerable and seek advice. The reason he gave was observing what we have done as a company and what we have volunteered in providing an overall good balance to creating our brand. He mentioned the business community recognizes this and why he trusted our discussion would be worthwhile.
We had a meeting for over two hours this week with one of the organizations I volunteer on. Not our typical meeting and we had to hammer out a number of items. The biggest challenge was everyone knew the right thing to do and it was very difficult to have all of us agree on a plan of action. It was interesting to hear both sides of the story and to see the group agree to a two-step process instead of a one-step plan to execute immediately.
When you look around at the amount of time all these professionals are investing, it makes you wonder sometimes is it worth it? Some of us felt like it was time to throw in the towel. Once you set your emotions back in check, you realize quitting is the easy way out. The group was very supportive of each other and we are all moving forward together.
Being involved in a smaller group of five, it is easy to have a bit of a power struggle on leadership. The leader of this group sent out a very "frustrated" e-mail last night not being happy about how we are handling things and how we are doing our own thing. I took this very personal having just come out of the other group' marathon meeting probably did not help my reaction.
Since it was family time it was best to let my response wait. Read the message again, sent a reply stating sorry the leader feels we let him down and asked what I could do to help? His reply was the message was aimed at one specific person and had to send it to all of us. Yes I get that strategy and maybe another time/place may have fully grasped who it was meant for. Sent another response to support the leader and focus on our task at hand.
Focusing on the different personalities seems to be the biggest challenges wearing the volunteer hat. When we are working well together things run smooth, we contribute in a positive way and the organizations we support benefit and appreciate the volunteers.
What I have experienced to deal with the volunteer hat challenges: remember why we are volunteering and have to speak our peace openly and honestly. We also have to keep in mind it is not about anyone's agenda. It is OK to not always agree, however, once the discussion is over and a decision is made we all need to support it.
Enjoying being a leader and a supporter on various organizations to make a difference in our community. Thanks to all the volunteers who donate their personal time and may not always be appreciated.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
7 Things Highly Productive People Do
How many of these things are you doing?
1. Work from Goals to Milestones to Tasks
2. Single Task Oriented
3. Eliminate Distractions
4. Schedule e-mail
5. Remember the Telephone?
6. Work on your own Agenda
7. Work in intervals of 60 or 90 Minutes
My two favourites are #2 and #5.
Most of us are guilty of multi-tasking and most of us will justify we can be more efficient and convince ourselves we are giving all tasks our undivided attention at all times.
So why do these same people ask "What was that?" or "Can you say that again?". If we could focus on a single task at a time, the quality and time are both improved significantly. Try it for yourself.
Oh yes the telephone. Readers of Building Circles will recall re-introducing this technology to our team to help communicate more effectively. Remember e-mails and texts have no emotions and are more difficult to understand the true meaning over phone call or better yet face-to-face communications.
What are you doing to keep yourself highly productive?
Inspired by: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2DLdeK/1l4uK_43:SIe38Njw/www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/7-things-highly-productive-people-do.html
1. Work from Goals to Milestones to Tasks
2. Single Task Oriented
3. Eliminate Distractions
4. Schedule e-mail
5. Remember the Telephone?
6. Work on your own Agenda
7. Work in intervals of 60 or 90 Minutes
My two favourites are #2 and #5.
Most of us are guilty of multi-tasking and most of us will justify we can be more efficient and convince ourselves we are giving all tasks our undivided attention at all times.
So why do these same people ask "What was that?" or "Can you say that again?". If we could focus on a single task at a time, the quality and time are both improved significantly. Try it for yourself.
Oh yes the telephone. Readers of Building Circles will recall re-introducing this technology to our team to help communicate more effectively. Remember e-mails and texts have no emotions and are more difficult to understand the true meaning over phone call or better yet face-to-face communications.
What are you doing to keep yourself highly productive?
Inspired by: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2DLdeK/1l4uK_43:SIe38Njw/www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/7-things-highly-productive-people-do.html
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
How to increase e-mail response
How many of your outgoing e-mails are responded to?
Top 5 things I do to increase response:
1. Timing
2. Subject Line
3. Focused business matter
4. Request a response
5. Include the personal touch
Timing - the earlier in the morning the better chance of getting a response. The tasks of the day have not taken the person away from focusing on their inbox just yet.
Subject Line - no selling! Shorter the better such as "checking in" or if making an introduction with "AlphaKOR" as the subject line. This strategy has a high rate of opening the e-mail.
Focused business matter - clear and to the point with just enough details necessary. If it takes more than 3 sentences to explain it, justify it or turn a negative e-mail to positive, simply STOP and pick up the phone. Having done this each time you find out miscommunications and a lot easier to talk it out instead of e-mail bantering.
Request a response - once the focused business matter is out of the way, ask for "your thoughts?", "kindly advise" or "looking forward to your reply". There are a lot of tasks going on for your audience so a gentle nudge does go a long way.
Personal Touch - we are all human and e-mail has no emotions and it's up to you to add some. "Hope you are having a good morning" or "Enjoy your Day" are two good statements for those you do not know well. When you know your audience, ask them about "How was your trip you mentioned?"
Bonus Tip - include cell number for individuals who are difficult to reach, too busy to connect with or need the extra personal touch letting them know you are always available.
What are you doing to increase your e-mail response rate?
Top 5 things I do to increase response:
1. Timing
2. Subject Line
3. Focused business matter
4. Request a response
5. Include the personal touch
Timing - the earlier in the morning the better chance of getting a response. The tasks of the day have not taken the person away from focusing on their inbox just yet.
Subject Line - no selling! Shorter the better such as "checking in" or if making an introduction with "AlphaKOR" as the subject line. This strategy has a high rate of opening the e-mail.
Focused business matter - clear and to the point with just enough details necessary. If it takes more than 3 sentences to explain it, justify it or turn a negative e-mail to positive, simply STOP and pick up the phone. Having done this each time you find out miscommunications and a lot easier to talk it out instead of e-mail bantering.
Request a response - once the focused business matter is out of the way, ask for "your thoughts?", "kindly advise" or "looking forward to your reply". There are a lot of tasks going on for your audience so a gentle nudge does go a long way.
Personal Touch - we are all human and e-mail has no emotions and it's up to you to add some. "Hope you are having a good morning" or "Enjoy your Day" are two good statements for those you do not know well. When you know your audience, ask them about "How was your trip you mentioned?"
Bonus Tip - include cell number for individuals who are difficult to reach, too busy to connect with or need the extra personal touch letting them know you are always available.
What are you doing to increase your e-mail response rate?
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Vulnerability Makes You a Better Leader
Being vulnerable makes you a better leader.
"People prefer their leaders with an appropriate balance of confidence and humility. Yet, one of the greatest challenges many leaders struggle with is embracing (and revealing) their own vulnerabilities."
Why do many feel they have to be perfect and never make any mistakes? There is a significant difference between striving for perfection and appearing to be perfect. Many cannot tell the difference and struggle with people like us. Yes we strive for perfection while at the same time we are open to being vulnerable - the balance.
After a presentation which included some personal stories, one gentleman approached me to ask why there was such an admission of a weakness? My response was open, honest and straight-forward: "I am not embarrassed to admit sometimes you deal with all the pressure by going home and spending some alone time and yes even cry". He seemed to have a real problem with being this honest and sharing it with the audience. It's the only policy I know!
Continuously raising the bar and striving for excellence while being vulnerable are what makes you a better leader.
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