A great interview with Diversity Coach, Victoria Raphael, on how to better understand introverts in the workplace AND how to capitalize on their strengths.  As a DiSC trainer, this is a must-listen interview (especially for the  D and the I style trainers)

Many view introverts in the workplace as shy and/or withdrawn… However, according to diversity coach Victoria Raphael, there is more to introverts than what meets our eyes… ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We have a very special guest today – Victoria Raphael – who is a diversity and interCultural coach. She is an avid Traveller… Her international background includes residence in Mexico , study in Germany and travel to more than 30 countries (so far!) Victoria decided to integrate her interest in foreign cultures with her desire to help people succeed, and became a Life Coach specializing in Diversity. She specializes in interculturalcommunication as well as “introversion” as a subgroup of diversity. She holds a masters degree in Training and Development and spent a few years teaching/training, sales, recruiting and instructing English as a foreignlanguage. She is also a published poet and writes short stories. When she is not coaching or writing she might be found doing yoga, listening to big band music, inventing a new recipe, or reading about penguins. She is a sponsor of a penguin sanctuary on Magdalena Island , Chile , and her special penguin “adoptee” is named The Great Penguini.

Download her research paper on how to better understand introverts, entitled “The Silence of the Introverts:  Using Coaching to Capitalize on Introvert Strengths in the Workplace” — You can dowload the research paper at http://www.egSebastian.com/introverts

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Join us as E.G. Sebastian interviews Award-Winning Corporate Coach, Noel Posus on the topic of Conflict Management. Learn more about Noel at www.IncredibleAwareness.com and download his free offers on Conflict Dynamics. He can be contacted at noel@IncredibleAwareness.com . Noel Posus is a highly-recognised leader of the international coaching industry, with over 20 years experience as a professional educator, coach and author. Noel was awarded the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Coaching’ Coach of the Year award in 2008 and 2009 as well as a number of other distinctions earned throughout his career. He has provided coaching services in well over 30 countries and numerous industry sectors. His client list includes notable organisations ranging from coaching at Microsoft to designing training/coaching programmes for the United Nations. Noel’s expertise areas include leadership development, conflict dynamics and developing a coaching culture within organisations.

Interview with Leadership Expert Ellen Kratka

Join us as I discuss servant leadership and leadership styles with leadership expert Ellen Kratka. Ellen is a personal and organizational coach, teacher and speaker who specializes in leadership, communications and cultural transformation through her business, Integrity Matters Business Services. She shows her clients how to build values-driven organizations that can harness the power of their teams in service to the common good. Her unique gift lies in quickly and easily helping people to clear away the beliefs that limit and divide them in favor of values that expand their potential and unite them in a meaningful cause. She is certified as a Level 2 consultant with Richard Barrett and Associates. Ellen also works as a holistic healer, teaching her clients how to restore their energy, release the thoughts and emotions that have held them back, and step into the greatest vision they can hold of who they are and what they’re capable of doing.

For more info and for the bonusses mentioned on the show, please visit http://www.egSebastian.com/ellen

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Wow! Technology is just getting way out there… YOU MUST CHECK THIS OUT!!!

It is a FREE online seminar about HOW TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE! And, we [DISC] trainers – and anyone who has a website – we can surely use some more quality traffic. So, hop on and sign up – it’s supposed to be 2-days of intensive learning, and I believe they even provide FREE access to the recording…

Either way, IT’S ALL WORTH WATCHING JUST TO SEE THIS NEW TECHNOLOGY

Enjoy!

Click on this link to go to their website: http://bit.ly/DriveTraffic2YourSite

See you there.
E.G.

As a DisC Trainer you often find yourself presenting to teams of managers. Herer’s a cool article from Brian Tracy…
Enjoy!
[Reprinted with the permission of the author]

The Role of a Leader

By Brian Tracy

Your ability to negotiate, communicate, influence, and persuade others to do things is absolutely indispensable to everything you accomplish in life. The most effective men and women in every area are those who can quite competently organize the cooperation and assistance of other people toward the accomplishment of important goals and objectives.

Of course, everyone you meet has different values, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, cultural values, work habits, goals, ambitions, and dreams. Because of this incredible diversity of human resources, it has never been more difficult and yet more necessary for diplomatic leaders to emerge and form these people into high-performing teams.

Fortunately, leaders are made, not born. You learn to become a leader by doing what other excellent leaders have done before you. You become proficient in your job or skill, and then you become proficient at understanding the motivations and behaviors of other people. As a leader, you combine your personal competencies with the competencies of a variety of others into a smoothly functioning team that can out-play and out-perform all its competitors.

When you become a team leader, even if your team only consists of one other person, you must immediately develop a whole new set of leadership skills. In order to determine what these skills are, you need to consider the genesis of high-performing teams.

Teams generally go through four phases as they evolve toward high performance. These stages are called forming, storming, norming, and performing.

The forming stage is very important, perhaps even critical, to the success of the team. Your ability to select the proper team members in order to accomplish a particular task—personal or business—is the mark of the superior leader. If you select the wrong people in the first place, it becomes almost impossible afterward to build a winning team, just as it would be impossible to win athletic championships with unskilled or ill-suited players.
In the forming stage, the team members come together and begin to get a feeling for each other. There will be a good deal of discussion, argument, disagreement, personal expression of likes and dislikes, and the forming of friendly alliances between team members.
This stage, especially the discussions and conversations that take place, may seem time consuming, but it is absolutely indispensable to the development of a unified group of people that you can lead.

One of the most important qualities of a leader is that of patience. And patience is never more necessary than when you are going through the early stages of assembling your team.

The second stage of team development is called storming. Storming is a shortened form of the word “brainstorming.” It is during this stage when the group, whose members are now comfortable with each other, begins the hard work of setting goals and deadlines, dividing up the tasks, and getting on with the job. During the storming phase, people learn about the contributions that each member can make to achieve the purposes of the team.

The third stage of team development is called norming. This is where norms and standards are established among the team members so that everyone feels secure and confident in his or her place. All members know what is expected and how it is to be measured. And all members are aware of the responsibilities and obligations that they have, not only to the job, but to the each other as well. Your ability as a leader to promote the norming process is critical to the success of the team.

The fourth stage of team development is performing. In the final analysis, your ability to get results is all that really matters. Your lifestyle, your rate of promotion and level of rewards, and your respect and esteem among your co-workers and bosses will all be determined by your ability to perform and to get others to perform.

There are basically five qualities of the most productive work teams that you need to foster throughout the stages of team development. The degree to which you accomplish this before you start working will determine your success as a team leader and the success of the team as a whole.

The first quality is the existence of shared values. You can foster this quality by asking the question, “What are our values?” or, “What do we stand for?” People will contribute the values they consider the most important. As they do, you or someone else can write them on a flipchart. The values will usually be something like: integrity, excellence, quality, caring about people, profitability, and harmony.

The second quality of top teams is shared objectives. It is absolutely essential that everyone takes the time to discuss the actual reason for forming the team and the chief results that are expected of them.

Leaders are those who can see the big picture. They are absolutely clear about what it is they want to accomplish and what it will look like. They have the ability to articulate this vision in the minds and hearts of others and to get everyone, no matter what their background or personality, working together in harmony toward the realization of that vision.
People cannot hit a target they cannot see. Again, even though it may appear time consuming, everyone needs to have ample opportunity to discuss and agree on the ultimate goals desired before work begins. The more thorough the discussion on goals and objectives, the more effective the team will be when it begins working.

The third quality of highly productive teams is shared activities. Everyone knows what they are supposed to contribute to the achievement of the overall goals and objectives of the team. Everyone also knows what each of the other members is expected to do. All the work that has to be done is clearly divided up among the team members, and everyone knows their role in the process.

The fourth quality of high-performing teams is that the head of the team leads the action. You become the role model for all of the others. You go out in front. You continually look for ways to make it easier for your team members to do their jobs. You accept complete responsibility for the achievement of the overall goal. You start a little earlier, you work a little harder, and you stay a little later. You set careful priorities on your time and you always work on your highest value tasks. You never ask anyone to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself. You always put yourself out in front and go to bat for your people in every circumstance. You are a leader because you continually lead.

The fifth and final quality of high-performing teams is that individually and as a group, they continually evaluate their progress toward their goals and values. They are always asking themselves, “How are we doing, and how can we do better?” When they manufacture or sell products in the marketplace, they ask their customers for ongoing feedback and evaluation. They set incredible standards of excellence and they are constantly striving to be better.

Whenever they have problems, misunderstandings, or difficulties within the team, they reexamine their values, their goals, their activities, their assignments, and their responsibilities. They are more concerned with what’s right than with who’s right. They are more concerned with winning than with not losing. High-Performing teams run by excellent leaders, are determined to perform in an excellent fashion. All members know that their ability to work together in harmony and cooperation is the key to the success of every one of them.
The wonderful thing about becoming a leader in your work and personal life is that you can practice the skills of influencing and persuading others toward a common objective. You can promote the principles of excellent teamwork by establishing your values and goals, determining your activities, and then leading the action. And you can improve yourself by continually evaluating your performance against your standards.

One of the marks of excellent people is that they never compare themselves with others. They only compare themselves with themselves and with their past accomplishments and future potential. You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards. The more proficient you become at getting the results for which you were hired, the more opportunities you will have to get results through others. And your ability to put together a team and then to lead that team to high performance will enable you to accelerate your career and fulfill your goals faster than ever before.

About The Author
Brian Tracy is legendary in sales addressing more than 250,000 men and women each year on the subjects of management, leadership, and sales effectiveness. He has produced more than 300 audio/video programs and has written 26 books, including his just-released books “Create Your Own Future,” “Victory,” and “TurboStrategy.” He can be reached at (858) 481-2977 or www.briantracy.com.

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If you would like to assess your management style and get specific tips on how to improve your management skills AND your communication and leadership skills, check out the DiSC^® PPSS assessment.  Here’s the link: http://egsebastian.com/disc_ppss - there’s also a sample for you to view.

As a manager, I highly recommend addingt the supplemental report called “Approach to Managing Others”

If you are a  Sales Manager, I recommend the supplemental report called “Strategies for Sales Management

If you are a Sales professional, ad the “Approach to Selling” supplemental report

… …

If you would lie to train your management team – or if you’d like to train management  teams around the country – take a look at the Everything DiSC Management Facilitator Kit, at http://egsebastian.com/disc_management_facilitation, complete with scripted seminars, professional PowerPoint slides and Handouts [both customizable], group activities, professional quality training DVD [to be used during the traing / for your trainees] and much more…

See sample videos, handouts, sample and more details here: http://www.everythingdisc.com/ED_Management/

If you decide to invest into this great trainers’ kit, visit http://egsebastian.com/disc_management_facilitation

… …

An alternative to the Everything DiSC Management Fackilitator kit, is the iDXreadyFrontline Mangement – Leveraging Your Strengths kit…

This is more for the “lazy” facilitator [it is extremely simple to present]… With this kit you can deliver a Improving Managers’ Effectiveness and Productivity with less effort.  It is mostly DVD viewing based and group and individual activities. 
To order it, call 877 379-3793 Monday through Friday 8:3o am to 7:oo pm
and 1o:oo am to 5:oo pm on Saturday

View it in actin here:http://www.idxlearning.com/marketing/idxready/F121/, then return to the above link, if you decide to invest in it.

!!! Make sure to call me  – E.G. Sebastian – TOLL FREE at 877 379-3793 if you have any questions !!!

Here’s a great article, by Brian Tracy, that I’m sure you’ll find useful as a DiSC trainer… or even applying it in your own business.

Enjoy!

Practical Project Management

By: Brian Tracy

Some skills are peripheral to success. It’s nice to have them, but they don’t make much of a difference one way or another. There are other skills, however, that are absolutely essential to your fulfilling your potential, and you must develop them to a fairly high degree if you are to achieve all of your goals.

One of these absolutely essential skills is the ability to manage projects of various sizes. Project management is a function not just of those who build hydroelectric dams or construct huge skyscrapers. You organize and engage in a project each time you go shopping at the grocery store. If you are in sales, every prospect you are working on developing into a regular customer is a project. If you are going out for the evening with another person, you are planning and organizing a project.

When you decide to become excellent at project management, you begin to apply a systematic process such as the one I will describe. Your ability to achieve multitask jobs is to control everything else you accomplish. And it’s not that difficult to learn.

Goals

In any project, the first thing to do is start at the goal and work back.  Every project begins with your clearly defining exactly what you want to accomplish and what it will look like if it is accomplished perfectly.

For example, let’s say that you decide to take a two-week trip to the Caribbean next winter. This is a project. You begin by defining what an ideal Caribbean vacation would consist of in every detail. You think about the hotel, the beaches, the daytime and evening activities you enjoy, the kind of people and service you want to experience and, of course, your budget. With all of those ingredients, and perhaps more, in mind, you come up with a clear description of the perfect winter holiday in the sun.

List

You next make a list of everything that you will have to do in order to achieve that final goal. You investigate the various Caribbean islands you could visit. You call more than one travel agent, to find out if there are particular packages, including airfare and hotels, that you can purchase at excellent prices well in advance. You plan your budget and determine where and when you will get the money that you require for this trip. You consider your work responsibilities and think through how you will arrange being away for two weeks without your company or your clients suffering at the time.

Deadlines

Once you have determined exactly how you want the goal to look when it is complete, you set specific dates and deadlines, starting from the departure date back to the present. By doing this, you have a clear time line from where you are to where you need to be on the day that the plane takes off.

Organize

The next step in project management is to organize your list of all the things that will need to be done for you to get to your goal — the completion of your project. There are two ways to organize a list in project management. The first way is sequential. This is when one step follows another. The first must be done before the second can be started. The second must be completed before the third can be started, and so on. These are often called dependent activities. One depends on the successful completion of another.

The second type of activities in project management is parallel or concurrent activities. These are tasks that can be worked on at the same time, separate and apart from other activities. For example, if you are planning a new brochure or newsletter, you could be writing the copy at the same time you are selecting paper stock or gathering possible photographs to illustrate the content.

Select & Delegate

Once you have the goal in mind and have listed everything that you must do to achieve the goal, and organized everything in terms of whether it is sequential or concurrent, you are ready for the core exercise of effective project management. It is the key to your future in the world of work. It is the process of selection and delegation.  The bigger the project, the more people, the more specialists in different fields, will be required to carry it through to successful completion. Your ability to select the right people and then to delegate effectively to them will determine your success or failure. A mistake in selection or a miscommunication in delegation can be enough to derail the entire project or to set it back, or to have it run over budget.

You can use project management to develop a new account, to increase your income, to attain a high level of physical health and fitness, to plan a vacation, to move across the country, to start and build a business, to write a book, paint a picture or sail a catamaran around the world.

In every case, the proper use of project-management techniques, such as those we have discussed here, can give you the winning edge. It can enable you to kick in the afterburners for your life and your career. The skill of project management will enable you to move ahead further and faster than you ever could without it. Although the steps to project management are simple, the skill of project management is complex, and it is vital to your success.

The cumulative results of your developing the skills of project management will enable you to accomplish bigger and bigger tasks with greater responsibilities and greater income¾with greater rewards of all kinds. Project management is a powerful key to the future.       

About The Author

Brian Tracy is legendary in sales addressing more than 400,000 men and women each year on the subjects of management, leadership, and sales effectiveness.  He has produced more than 300 audio/video programs and has written over 26 books, including his just-released books “TurboStrategy,” and “Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life.”  He can be reached at (858) 481-2977 or www.briantracy.com.

Brief Description of Article: Don’t get carried away thinking about the infinite possibilities of what a website can do. Understand what your website should do for your business, and build it with that in mind.

The internet has no limits. It contains billions of pages relating to millions of different subjects, some with written text, some with audio or video, some with animation, and some with a little bit of everything. The internet is the largest collection of information in human history, and it gets bigger and more complex every minute. Exciting, isn’t it?

Sure, it’s exciting, but when it comes to your company’s website, don’t get carried away. Many people make the mistake of trying to cram as much of the internet’s capability as possible onto their website, and the result is a mess: too much design, too many tools, too many pages, too many different types on content. Once you get started down that road, it’s not easy to stop—there’s always something new you’ll think you need to add, or that someone will say you need to add.

If you’re updating your site, or especially if you’re building a new one from scratch, stop and think about what that website is really supposed to do. Is it supposed to sell products, or just convince someone to pick up the phone and call you? Is it supposed to introduce your company to people who’ve never heard of you, or provide information to an established customer base? Or is it supposed to do all of the above? Once you’ve answered these questions, you’ll know how to build your site.

Let’s start with that last question first. Proper organization is always important, but if your site caters to a wide audience, if it needs to be a lot of things to a lot of people, organization is absolutely critical. If you have a number of different brands or widely varied services, consider using a separate website for each. If that’s not an option, you’ll need to build different sections of your site for your different audiences, and you’ll need to make sure that anyone who goes to the site knows exactly what to do. The front page probably shouldn’t do much more than identify your company and provide links for the different sections of the site.

To see this strategy in action, go to your health insurance company’s website. Does it say much on the front page? Probably not. More likely, it just has a large graphic and some well-identified areas to click on– one for you, one for doctors and hospitals, and one for employers. You’ll see this even more clearly on the websites of companies that operate in multiple countries— some of them won’t tell you anything at all until you tell them which country you live in or what language you speak. Keep this in mind, even if you’re not running a billion-dollar corporation: you don’t want to risk alienating your customers by letting them get lost in a section of your site that doesn’t have anything to do with them.

If your site doesn’t need to do quite so much, focus on what you really do need from it. If you’re in a business with a long buying cycle, keep that in mind. You’ll need to provide lots of information about your company and your product, not ask your customer to “Proceed to Checkout.” If you’re looking for leads, build a site that does the best possible job of getting people to contact you, or to provide you with their contact information. Don’t try to close the sale on the second page of your site. It won’t work, for one thing, and it will make you appear inexperienced and unprofessional.

If, on the other hand, your site does need to sell products, focus on that. In most cases, customers who are planning to buy a T-shirt, a pair of shoes, or a tube of toothpaste don’t need to know a whole lot about the company they’re buying from. They’ll want some assurance that you’re not a fly-by-night operation, of course, so let them see right away that you have the accreditations, memberships, or partnerships that lend you credibility. Once you’ve done that, dispense with the formality and show them what they came to see.

Author Bio: Bob Regnerus, “The Leads King”, is an expert at generating online traffic and converting web visitors into prospects and clients. To learn more about how your website can be a successful, effective tool for your business, please visit www.TheLeadsKing.com.