If you want to know more about my professional background in parish ministry and its impact on today when I stand in front of an audience, the strategy I use with my consulting clients and the non-monetary motivators that keep me trudging around the globe, go to my web site, www.execenrichment.com, and look at the bottom left hand corner.  There you can click on a podcast and listen to an interview conducted by a colleague and friend of mine, Chad Barr, President of CB Software Systems, Inc.

How do you verbally and emotionally respond when you have been criticized unfairly?

Before I provide definitive responses, there are two assumptions about criticism which must be established.  First, criticism, regardless of how it is presented, never “feels” good.  The very act of finding fault with either performance or attitude is emotionally problematic.

Second, criticism is often not remedial.  When the conversation is concluded, both parties want to take a shower.  It just seems like nothing positive took place.

With those assumptions in mind, here are three responses you can use when the criticism is, in your opinion, not founded in anything factual.

The first stage of your response would be to reply, “I do not see myself that way.  Can you be more specific?”  Stating your disagreement with the observation is legitimate but it must be followed with a request for factual information.

The second stage, assuming the “factual” information was not supplied or valid, would be, “I am convinced there is a basic misunderstanding about both my motives and performance in this situation.”  The “I” statement is important because you have to own these words.  

The third stage is collaborative.  You would say, “Now that we both have clearly expressed ourselves, what can the two of us do to move past this disagreement and work effectively together”?  The “do” in that question is now the task in front of the two of you.  You can disagree with each other’s perception of one another, but if you have to work together, the past has to be willfully ignored.

In next month’s LeMonAide I will provide responses when the criticism is justified, i.e. you are guilty as charged!

I love used bookstores for exactly a tome like this one, Enough. (True Measures of Money, Business and Life) by John C. Bogle (ISBN:  978-0-470-39851-7).

John C. Bogle is the CEO of Vanguard Mutual Fund Group.  Mr. Bogle is a very smart, savvy guy with lots of kudos in his pocket.  And, Mr. Bogle is, in my opinion, one of the most honest business minds I have ever read.

This book is filled with common sense and sound ethics about accumulating wealth, doing business according to internal ethics and finding genuine joy in life in sharing with people and organizations who serve those who do not have the privileges Mr. Bogle enjoys.

Some chapter titles include, “Too Much Salesmanship, Not Enough Stewardship,” “Too Much Complexity, Not Enough Simplicity” and “Too Much Management, Not Enough Leadership.”

What a refreshing read.  I hope you pick this one up and join me in the celebration of doing business with…heart.

New Article for Free Download

“Learning to Trust Your Boss” will be of help to you if you are struggling with trust issues at work.  The premise of my article is trust, in any relationship, is learned behavior.  

Here is a quote from the article:  Trust is not a commodity, a package left on front steps or the contents of a three-ring binder.  Trust is the accumulation of thousands of “trust points” that are swept up between our ears and deposited in our burgeoning “character” file we keep on people around us.

Using this assumption, you will find three, pragmatic “tests” you can apply to your working relationship with your boss.  

Here is an idea:  print this article and give it to your boss with this note attached, “I think you may enjoy reading this.  Let’s get together this week and discuss.”

You’ll find the article at www.execenrichment.com, under the FREE RESOURCES tab.

Skills to Say What You Want to Say

If you get “tongue-tied” and have trouble getting ideas, thoughts or emotions into clearly articulated sentences, purchase my 50 minute CD training program, Skills to Say What You Want to Say.  

This CD training will provide you with five, sequential skill sets to make sure the next time you have your thoughts between your ears, these same honest thoughts will come out of your mouth.

To order a copy of the CD, it’s under the OUR STORE tab at www.execenrichment.com.

What time of day are you calling your clients, customers, coworkers or anyone else connected with your workplace?

Telephone etiquette assumes the following four principles in response to the question above.

First, if there is an emergency any time is permissible.  If the workplace is on fire, if there has been a serious injury or a significant loss of value, the call is appropriate.

Second, it is strongly recommended calls prior to the beginning of the work day should not be made especially if information can be transmitted as soon as business begins.

Third, calling a coworker or employee, without a crisis, is not acceptable after this person has gone home.

Finally, if a telephone call is necessary it should be brief and targeted.

Remember, if you do not respect the sanctity of someone’s home, loss of business or staff should not be a surprise.

Meetings, according to most research, are the worst time-wasters in the American workplace.  If you are a participant or a team leader you can save lots of time by:

**sending out an agenda before the meeting with specific instructions for the participants to read attached information.
**announcing a beginning and ending time for the meeting and, come Hades or high water, honor those times.
**getting agreement at the beginning of the meeting that everyone will have an opportunity to make a verbal contribution…but only for a specific period of time.  This means, “Everyone will have five minutes to express himself/herself on this issue.”
**making sure refreshments are already in the meeting room so people do not have to come and go feasting and slurping.
**having copies of important handouts in the meeting room ready to be distributed.
**never, ever letting anyone with an “axe” to grind dominate the meeting. 

As I travel, I write down the “small” items that make a trip easy on my body and mind.  Here are several hints for the highway you may want to remember:
1)       Always leave a hotel phone number with your family so you can turn off your cell in your room.
2)       Take change or bills out of your wallet or purse when you get into a rental car if you will have to pay any tolls.  This small suggestion could save you thousands of dollars if you cause an accident while digging for the cash.
3)       On your way up to your room in a hotel, stop in the restaurant or breakfast bar area and grab a few of those small coffee creamers.  If you use cream in your morning coffee the liquid creamers are a much better choice than the packets of dry something (contents are always a mystery) the in-room coffee service provides.
4)       Never put anything that belongs to you in the seat pocket in front of you on an airliner.  You will forget it and whatever that special something was will never be found again.
5)       When getting into a cab always ask the driver if there will be additional charges other than the ones that appear on the meter.  This is a classic way for the driver to pocket some extra cash.  If the driver tries this tactic, write down his name on the receipt and send a letter to the cab company.  They do not know what to fix unless they know what is broken!
6)       Ask for a high floor in a hotel if you will be using your cell phone.  You will always get better reception and have fewer dropped calls.

I have just recorded a new podcast entitled, Finding the “Dance” in Avoidance.  

Do you “avoid” initiating a difficult conversation, completing a long, laborious project or correcting your own mistakes?  As another human being, I know the answer is “yes.”

I believe both of us can begin the “dance” with the ego-defense mechanism, avoidance.  In this podcast I will provide eight initiatives we both can take to end this wasteful practice in our personal and professional lives.  These 11 minutes may save you hours of silent inaction which is costing us health and wealth.

To listen to the information, choose the PODCASTS option under FREE RESOUCES at www.execenrichment.com.  You’ll find a list of all my recent podcasts there.

Do you have “after the sale” guarantees?

There are two important considerations about offering this “safety net” to your potential customers.

First, do not offer what you are not prepared to back up with quick, respectful action.  The worst PR for any organization is one that promises the moon but delivers a swamp of sappy excuses.  Make sure “service after the sale” is clear, written and you are prepared to offer written customer endorsements when the product failed to meet expectations.  Frankly, anyone can give a glowing testimony of products/services which have not been rendered.  The art of the sales deal is to also have a bus-load of satisfied customers who had a problem but received amazing responses from you or your company.

Second, when you know there is customer dissatisfaction after the sale, drop everything and immediately make it right.  The longer you wait to fix the problem the more unhappy, and vocal, this customer will become.

There are some aids to excellent writing which are timeless.  Undoubtedly you have heard of the “Five W’s” when you need a paradigm for arranging your thoughts.  Below you will find the historic “Five W’s” to hang your thoughts and words on in a future writing assignment.

1.  Who:
a.  is the primary reader?
b.  else will read this communication?
c.  are you to the reader?
d.  should perform specified actions?

2.  What:
a.  do you hope to accomplish?
b.  do you prefer to avoid?
c.  criteria are you using?
d.  is fact, what is opinion?
e.  is your solution or conclusion?
f.  are the alternatives?
g.  are your motives?
h.  questions might the reader ask?
i.  does the reader know about the subject?

3.  Why:
a.  are you writing?
b.  are you writing now?
c.  have you reached your conclusion?

4.  Where:
a.  does the communication lead?
b.  are the reader's biases?
c.  is the reader's resistance?

5.  When:
a.  will additional information be available?
b.  will actions and events occur?
c.  are deadlines?