PD Strategies Blog

Are fear and procrastination holding you back from doing what you want to do now? These two obstacles need to be overcome if you choose to succeed. Fear takes many forms and they are all success killers. Fear causes you to play it safe when you should be taking calculated risks. When you take the path that is uncertain you have the opportunity for greater rewards. And as you take those less travelled paths you will become stronger. Procrastination is really another problem and it could also be related to fear. Fear of failure or fear of success. This manifests itself in excuses such as these: “Getting ready to go to work”. For example, “I still don’t have my resume, my presentation, or my 2 sharpened number 2 pencils”—you get the idea! Many times people want to do great things but they never follow through. Why? One possible answer is that...

If you were just appointed manager what is now your new responsibility? In the earlier times of business and industry the role of a manager was not that complex. The manager oversaw what employees did. People performed or were fired. This traditional boss is no longer effective and no longer welcome. Management today is more complex. There are really two parts: management and leadership. As manager you are responsible for the performance of your team, your business, or your company. In essence, the buck stops with you. That does not mean that you do everything yourself. It also does not mean that you offload your responsibility to your employees. It means that you get results with your people. That means that you must delegate with confidence. You must be confident because you can only delegate tasks and even authority but you can never delegate your responsibility. An effective manager must still...

Now that you have carefully selected the correct fit for your company you will want them to stay. You do that by creating an Employee Value Proposition. Get this wrong and you will continue to tread water always trying to catch up. Get this right and you have one very important component for taking your business to the next level. a team of people, or are charged with human resources in your organization you know how important it is to retain your best people. So why do so many employee leave, or worse, why do they stay and become a drag on the organization? Here is a sobering fact. Employees do not leave companies, they leave supervisors. Many supervisors believe that if only the pay and fringe benefits were better their best employees would stay. I would not deny the compensation is important. However, people who are truly engaged with their...

Has your Westchester County NY business has grown and you realize you must hire your first employee? You might be tempted to reach out to someone you know. Hiring someone because of friendship ignores the purpose for hiring someone in the first place—the fact that you need someone with specific qualifications to do a job. Many businesses find that selecting and hiring of the right employee is a daunting task. Some people just hire anyone who applies or, at best, they may ask a few quick questions before making an offer. Hiring the wrong person can be costly but hiring high performing employees will result in helping your organization meet its goals and will promote your brand to your customers. Before accepting an application or advertising you should have a clear description of duties for the prospective new hire. Know exactly what you need. What are the duties required? What behaviors...

It seems that when many people hire a staff member that spend a tremendous amount of time on resumes, skills and knowledge. And yet people usually don’t fail because of lack of skills. It is usually bad behavior, bad actions, or bad attitude. Several years ago, I heard Zig Ziglar speak. He said, “Your attitude determines your altitude.” What do YOU think about when you hear the word attitude? When I ask this question at workshops people usually respond with examples what they consider a bad attitude. It may even have a negative connotation to you. The fact is that people do not put enough emphasis on how attitude affects performance. Attitudes DO affect performance. In fact, they affect everything that we do. There is a strong link between attitude and performance. Let’s start with defining what attitude means in this context. An attitude is a pattern of thought. It affects...

rawpixel.com It’s human nature to want to know that when you’re telling someone something, they’re listening to you and taking your points on board. This is particularly true when it involves your job. As a manager, you have significant influence over whether your team members will enjoy their work and the environment in which they work in. Central to this is an ability to show that you are a good listener, picking up on strengths, interests and problems and responding to feedback. With research indicating that we remember 25-50% of what we hear, it seems fair to suggest that most of us could probably do more to improve. Managers are no exception! How can I become a better listener? The best way in which to improve your listening skills is to practice ‘active listening’. This means fully taking on board what another person is saying and trying to understand properly the...

All results, good or bad, are the result of the leaders. Think about organizations in the news, both good and bad, and the leader of the organization is heralded or blamed. Yes, the leader sets the tone, the direction, and also models behavior. Positive results are the result of positive leaders. Show me an organization that functions very well and I can show you a positive engaged leader. I recently asked a group of employees in Westchester County NY what was wrong with their company. They replied, “We need positive leadership. We need leadership with people skills.” What does your organization need? Does it need more sales or more profits? Does it need an updated marketing plan that gets results? Does your organizational structure need to change to get business to the next level? Regardless of how you answer these questions one fact is abundantly clear. It is your people who...

People have a perception of a salesperson as a pushy person trying to convince someone to buy something he or she does not need. If you have been a buyer you know the stress involved in going into a car showroom to buy your next car. With these images in mind it is no wonder that people are reluctant to become salespeople. Now what is your perception of your doctor when you have a problem or a pain? If you are going because of stress, anxiety, or pain you are looking for the doctor to relieve your pain and solve your problem. This is the exact opposite image that you might feel about sales? Is it the profession or is it something else? It is something else and here is why. If you visit your doctor because you have a pain in your back the doctor does a complete examination and...

Procrastination is the root cause of many time management issues. In fact, time management is usually not a time management problem but a behavior problem. Procrastination is something that we all have to confront and deal with from time to time. It's only natural to procrastinate at times, but the way you deal with your procrastination patterns will determine what effects procrastination has on your life. Why is it that so many people start out with good intentions to achieve a goal but never achieve that goal? When you procrastinate you simply fail to take action on the very things you know will bring you the rewards that you desire. You know you want the rewards and know you must take action but you hold off, make excuses and, in short, procrastinate. Procrastination can be caused by a fear—a fear of failure or the fear of stepping outside your comfort zone....

The employees of your business are important to your success. It is important to have the right person in the right job. Just as important, you must give your employees the support that they need to do the best work. Unfortunately, I am sometimes contacted by business owners that can’t understand why there are so many bad employees and they want me to fix them. Really? It doesn’t work that way. Here is an example. I have changed some things so as not identify anyone. I was asked by a family business what I felt needed to be done to “make their people work.” They did not ask me what they could do differently. For starters, family members disagreed on the operation of the business. Because of this, some key employees chose to align with one family member over the other. The managers in the business complained about lack of leadership...

Fear of change is an emotion that can become paralyzing.   I am reminded of a story relayed to me by a Westchester County NY CEO. The business has had years of successful sales and profits. Although the long standing business model had produced great sales and profits, lately there had been a small decline in sales and profits. Since the business was making money the CEO reasoned let’s just see what happens. If it’s not broke don’t fix it. Unfortunately, with this business and others there are constant changes in the economy and market. You can wait for change to force you to do something and then react. But that is not the best option. The best option is to predict and get in front of change. These are some of the things you should you should be doing proactively: 1.        Make sure you know what business you are in. Whether...

People do not like to be sold but they sure like to buy. Most if not all of us are in some form of sales but to be successful we need to more to the buyer side of the table and assist them in buying. So here are seven ideas to help you open a conversation and assist your clients in buying: 1. Don’t use a sales pitch but instead start a conversation. When you call someone, avoid making a mini-presentation about yourself, your company, and what you have to offer. Start with an opening conversational phrase that focuses on a specific problem that your product or service solves 2. Your central goal is always to discover whether you and your potential client are a good fit. Let go of trying to “close the sale” or “get the appointment.” If you simply focus your conversation on problems that you can help...

Someone else cannot motivate you. Motivation comes from within. However, that does not mean that help someone find his or her inner motivation. Only when you focus on the other person rather than what you won’t will you start to see results with other people. Start with yourself. And to be specific start with the WHY. Frankly, if you do not have the WHY the HOW will not matter. Motivation and goal achievement are interrelated. Knowing what motivates you is a key to achievement and knowing how to find motivation in others is a key to leadership. Dwight Eisenhower said that leadership is getting others to do what you want because THEY want to do it. Reach down and find that motivation and bring it to the surface. Find your passion. If you are not what you are passionate about start by doing a dream inventory. List every dream you have....

A leading indicator of future performance is not past experience. That is not to say that knowledge of the job and the requisite skills are not important. They certainly are but when you hire someone you are looking for future performance. I work with numerous privately held and family held businesses. And I have observed that those running the business believe that their industry is different from others, so unique that the primary requirement is experience. Because of that mindset I have seen many bad candidates hired and many qualified candidates screened out. The hiring manager is using the assumption that as long as the candidate has previous experience in the industry or job that the candidate will be a success in the hiring manager’s job. In my work with organizations I have found that experience in the industry is NOT a predictor of success. In fact, I have seen it...

HOW TO DEVELOP A LOYAL CUSTOMER BASE Peter Drucker said that the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer. It is really that simple. Creating a customer is done through a clear message and marketing but keeping a customer is based on performance. There are not enough businesses that reason focus on what works to retain a customer. A company that says it separates itself from others by service usually does not know what that really means. As an example it seems that the majority of businesses are focusing on customer satisfaction to determine their customer service measurements. This measurement is flawed and often falls short of actionable expectations. Companies also make a mistake in the method of measuring the voice of their customer. Asking people to write a rating on social media is MARKETING not measurement. Measurement is consistent, private, and asks for the good, the bad,...

Many business advisors and sales consultants talk about how they want to be a trusted advisor to their client. Becoming a trusted advisor is a process that is built on credibility, trust and respect. For some, achievement of that objective for some will require a paradigm shift in conduct of the buying selling process. Dan Pink, in his book, “To Sell is Human,” talks about how we are all in sales so to speak. He calls this the art of moving people and it applies to everyone from consultants to teachers. The old formula of sales no longer works. Those who remember sales from years ago remember ABC which means Always Be Closing. This is a tactic no longer works in today’s information rich environment. Using gimmicks to get sales in the past was based on the fact that the seller had a deal or that the buyer did not know...

Are you doing the job you are paid to do? If you were promoted to management recently this is a fair question. There a large difference between being a great individual performer and a great manager and leader. In 1969, Lawrence Peter wrote a humorous book titled The Peter Principle in which he postulated that, in a hierarchy people tend to be promoted to the level of their incompetence. He noted that although this is not planned it is the unintended consequence. Companies make a flawed assumption that because the employee was a great individual performer in the previous job that he or she will adapt and become a leader of the team. Inevitably, according to the Peter Principle, the person ends up being promoted to a job where they are no longer competent. This is referred to as their "level of incompetence". The employee has no chance of further promotion,...

Many times my clients in Westchester County New York tell me that they have problems with time management. If that were the case, then they would be able to solve their problems very quickly. But time management is not a time management issue at all. It usually involves a much bigger issue including attitudes and behaviors. Since it involves a much bigger issue you can’t solve the problem simply by being more organized. Systems alone cannot help create more time. There are many books that tell you how to organize your time. You can buy a day planner, or use Apps or other organizing and calendar programs but still have no better control of your day. The root cause of the problem is not the lack of systems or processes. It is our own attitudes about time, our bad habits and our bad behaviors. It is a fact that you only...

Exercising strong control rarely leads to better performance. In fact, being a control freak insures that nothing can get done without your involvement. If you want to have a growing business too much control is not the way to achieve it. Many of my business owners in Westchester County New York have learned the importance of delegation to business growth. Once you decide to add just one new employee your main job is not control but getting others to do what needs to be done. If you don’t let go, you will be seen as a micro manager. This will actually de motivate your team and guarantee that you will do everything yourself. Why is this problematic? Let me ask another question. Why did you hire another person to begin with? The answer is that you wanted to be able to grow your business. But if you don’t get out of...

Behavioral competencies are more important the functional job competencies. Organizations that leverage behavior competencies create cultures of performance and success.   And Peter Drucker is alleged to have said that culture eats strategy for lunch. This means the without the culture including vision, values, people who share those values and doing the right thing; then your strategy is not worth the paper it is printed on. In Good to Great Jim Collins explains that building a great organization is as simple as “Getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.” It may be simple but it’s not easy. You will need to change the way you hire people. Unfortunately, all too often owners and hiring managers tend to make hiring decisions by looking at background in the industry, jobs held before, and job history. Significant time is spent...