Posted: October 24, 2017 | Categories: Management, Self-Improvement

Mark Twain once said, “A sense of humor is a sense of proportion”.  He was so right.  My coaching experience has taught me that top-performing teams have a hearty  sense of humor.  They laugh at life, and they laugh at themselves.  They do not create humor at another person’s expense.

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Posted: September 19, 2017 | Categories: Leadership, Self-Improvement

Early in my coaching career I developed an hypothesis: There is no leadership growth without an improvement in listening skills.  So far, this theory has served me well.

If someone challenged me to come up with a  list of people I thought were truly good listeners, I would only be able to think of a handful.  No, I wouldn’t be on that list (unless my wife wasn’t reading it!).Read More…

Posted: September 15, 2017 | Categories: Sales, Self-Improvement

Anyone in Law enforcement will tell you that the most dangerous situation they can encounter is interfering in a domestic squabble. They approach such situations with extreme caution.

In sales, we can run in to the same type of situation. While it may not be life-threatening like a domestic quarrel, how we handle ourselves could easily make the difference between weathering the storm rather than losing an account.  Read More…

Posted: September 1, 2017 | Categories: Presentation skills, Sales, Self-Improvement

How long do first impressions last? I get a variety of answers when I ask that question. I have heard some say that first impressions last forever. Let’s see if we can improve on that:

Experts tell us that when we meet someone for the first time, we form a first impression in 4 seconds. The good news is that this first impression, like quick-drying cement, is not solidified until 30 seconds have passed. That means we have 26 seconds to recover. Once that 30 seconds is up, the impression is locked in, and we now look for things to validate the impression.Read More…

Posted: August 16, 2017 | Categories: Self-Improvement, Team Building

Many years ago I was talking with a client who owned a very successful bond trading business.  He was talking about how fast bond deals were processed.  He said, “In Italy, it can take as long as 30 days.  In France it would take several days.  London can turn a deal within 24 hours, but in the United States the average turnaround time is about an hour.”  I asked him why it is only an hour in the US.  He said, “Because in this country we want what we want fast and we want it now.“  So true.Read More…