Posted: October 8, 2014 | Categories: Leadership, Sales, Self-Improvement

“If out of reading this book you get just one thing – an increased tendency to think always in terms of other people’s point of view, and see things from their angle – if you get that one thing out of this book, it may easily prove to be one of the building blocks of your career” -Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence People)

I read the above words for the first time about 40 years ago.  In my years of managing and coaching since then, I have found this to be an absolute truth.  Since I read that book, I have been on a never-ending search on ways to keep growing in my ability to understand and positively influence others.

I want to share with you one of the most useful tools I have learned in keeping communication and understanding strong.  I call it the four quadrants.  Their origin goes back to ancient Greek/Roman times.  They have been used as the foundation of personality profiles in modern day.  Here they are:Read More…

Posted: September 30, 2014 | Categories: Leadership, Self-Improvement, Time management

“For want of a nail…the shoe was lost…for want of a shoe…the horse was lost…for want of a horse, the battle was lost.  What a sorry tale!  And all for the want of a horseshoe nail” – An old nursery rhyme

If we want to be the best, attention to details are critical.  As General Colin Powell put it, “Check small things…be demanding”.  Top achievers know and live the value of relentless attention to detail.  Everything counts.  Everything matters.Read More…

Posted: August 17, 2014 | Categories: Leadership

Several years ago I was coaching a team on negotiating skills.  Their company manufactured assembly machines and the average ticket was over 600K.  One day, one of their key clients called them and asked for the blueprints to one of the machines they were manufacturing.  Dave, the sales rep, knew what that meant:  They were shopping around and wanted to give the prints to another vendor to look at.  Dave didn’t want to give up the prints, but he kept thinking, “The prints are theirs.  They have paid for them.  I can’t be selfish”.  With painful reluctance, he let go of the prints.Read More…

Posted: August 9, 2014 | Categories: Leadership

I’ll never forget that day.  It was one of the most important defining moments of my life:  I was in 6th grade and had just started the second week of class.  Our teacher, Mrs. McGinnis, had a very special announcement:  She said, “We are going to have an exciting project that we are starting today:  It is a class magazine.  It will contain all the events and highlights of the class plus special stories and other contributions from the class members”

As I listened to this, I thought, “That sounds like a lot of work.  I don’t think I’m interested”.  Then came the clincher:  Mrs. McGinnis concluded by saying “I am pleased to announce that the editor is going to be Steve Brainerd”  Hmm… No problem, I thought.  I can talk her out of it.Read More…

Posted: August 6, 2014 | Categories: Leadership, Self-Improvement, Team Building

Have you ever come up with a great idea to solve a problem only to have it shot down right away?  If this happens to us enough, we could become discouraged and hesitate to share a future idea.  Good teams respect the principle of “idea fluency”.  Everyone should feel comfortable and confident in sharing their ideas.

If we have a good idea that we believe will solve an important problem, we need to prepare ourselves to sell our idea.  That requires that we work through these four basic problem solving questions that have been time tested for over 100 yearsRead More…