How To Work From Home When You Are New To Working From Home

Your workspace may have recently changed to a work from home culture, or perhaps you just joined a company that embraces work from home as an option. As someone who has worked from home for years, I believe it’s a great opportunity for you. This work from home blog post includes a few quick tips on how to help you set up a home office, so you can be productive, stay healthy and protect your professional reputation as you work from home.

Have A Routine From Morning To Evening

You won’t have to travel to and from work which is a great time and money saver. So your tendency may be one of two things.

1. Get out of bed and start working… which might mean you are on at 7AM

2. Use the travel time you’ve saved for a bit more sleep, or to spend time with family… which might mean you are on at 9AM

I think either are fine. Just make sure your choice works with the culture of your team / the organization. Also, try to keep your routine predictable so your coworkers and best clients can learn your schedule.

It’s important to note that as long as you went to bed before 2AM and are not exhausted, it’s most likely you are at your strategic and creative best between 7AM and 11AM (give or take). So, protect your mornings for your most important work. Time Management guru Stephen R Covey said long ago in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, ‘Put First Things First’ (Habit #3). For example, do your best to book routine meetings, non-urgent phone calls and to respond to the bulk of your email (your non-urgent email) in the afternoon, just do it.

In addition to protecting your morning also schedule a few breaks through your day. Get up, go for a mini-walk, put in a load of laundry, phone your mom for 10-minutes while you make a coffee (she will love you for it). I don’t think it matters what you do – but you want a mental break. You would have informal, casual chats with your coworkers if you were in an office, so make it happen at home. Even a 10-minute break or change of scenery will help you refocus, feel fresh and see things a bit more clearly.

Now, about getting dressed and eating breakfast. Yes, do both. It’s likely you are going to be on a few video calls during the day (they are becoming routine). So, have a shower and get yourself ready similar to how you would if you were going into the office. And as far as breakfast goes – I totally recommend eating something – but basically, do whatever your doctor tells you.

Create A Home Office

You need a space you can walk away from at the end of the day and feel comfortable at during the day. Amazon has some interesting wall-mounted fold-down desk options that are affordable and great if space is a challenge. There are also easy plans on Youtube on how to build a wall-mounted fold-down desk. Whatever you do, I encourage you to find a solution that doesn’t include you hanging out with your dog on your couch or sitting at your dining room table while your children do laps. Distractions will have a negative impact on your productivity and your stress level… and cause a dozen other problems.

As best you can, have a desk that is the right height with a real office chair with the best back support you can find. It’s also great if along with all the technology you are supposed to be using, that you use a large external monitor and a special external microphone or proper headset with microphone… for those video calls

Mirror Your Technology With Your Coworkers

This may sound like a no-brainer, especially since your employer should be providing you your technology but there is a slight tendency when we are working remotely to sometimes use an app we like that is not standard issue. Or, it’s very common for co-workers to use the same technology differently… or should I say not to its fullest ability. Take the time to watch the proper tutorials on how to use the software and be sure you are using it the same way.

As we discussed above, it’s almost guaranteed you will be on a few video calls if you are working from home. Do yourself a favour - use the camera (and set it up properly - which means at or slightly above eye-level). Using the camera will be good for your long-term brand (and career success), because when people see you they are more likely going to remember you – and they will feel greater trust in you and your work.

Separate Work From Home

Do the best you can to set up your office space in an unused room or in a quiet out of the way place. This will be good for your productivity, and it will also be good for your mental health.

You’ll need to turn off work each day – and likely on the weekends. You don’t want to be staring at your to-do list or listen to that nasty ding of incoming email all night and all weekend. Be sure you turn off work – which also might mean leave your work smartphones in a drawer or use apps that stop email from downloading during non-office hours.

Do yourself this favour – and do it for your family and friends. And if you have extra time, go for a walk, go to the gym and / or pick up a real book – with a real book cover.

If you have any other suggestions and great work from home tips, leave me a comment below.

Thanks for reading about how to work from home when you are new to working from home.

If i can help you in any way, please let me know. Click HERE to link to my professional development website.

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

Send Professional Business Email: Make The Perfect Impression

I’ve written a lot about email etiquette. It often seems like every time I teach an email writing training workshop I’m inspired to write about the great questions I get asked – thankfully for my regular readers I don’t.

Like many of you, during the Covid-19 Pandemic my training schedule has changed. Even so, I’m thrilled people are still reaching out, which means I’ve been receiving “How do I” questions on a number of my training topics. Because it has been a long time since I wrote about email etiquette I decided to write an email blog post that focuses on the main body of a message. So, here are 8 email etiquette tips that help business professionals like you be proud of the professional email you send.

8 Email Etiquette Tips to Protect Your Email Writing and Make The Perfect Impression:

1. Link your attachments first. We’ve all sent email and forgotten to link the attachment… and then have to sheepishly send a second. This wastes time (yours and your readers) and can hurt your reputation, especially if it happens often. Solve this problem by linking your attachment first.

2. After you linked attachments use a professional email greeting. It only takes 2 seconds to write ‘Hello’ or ‘Hi’ but a greeting is polite and will take an edge off your email. Email that don’t have a greeting often are interpreted as abrupt or impolite.

3. Get to the point quickly. Let your reader know why they should read your email by writing your action item first and your background information second. Many of us do the opposite.

4. Write with your reader in mind. Is all the information they need included? Don’t leave out important details that are ‘natural’ for you but may not be common-knowledge for your reader.

5. Double check tone. Your goal is to be efficient but to also be respectful. Because email is only the written word it’s easy to sound abrupt and demanding by mistake. 

6. Make sure you use paragraphs. White space makes your message more inviting for your reader – which means your reader is likely going to read it. Also, using paragraphs makes your email:

   • Easy to read

   • Easy to understand

   A quick rule of thumb is if you are writing more than 4 sentences you might need to break up your copy and start a new paragraph.

7. Check your spelling and grammar. It seems half the messages I receive have a small typo in them… like a word with two letters transposed (adn instead of and or yrou instead of your). It happens all the time when we write, and while it’s minor problem, if you don’t catch the typo in your email it will distract your reader and may put your reputation for attention to detail into question.

8. Have you used words or phrases there is a chance they might not understand? The last thing you want is for your reader to misinterpret a word you’ve used. A good rule is to write as if you are writing to someone in grade 9.

Follow these basic email etiquette rules to make the perfect impression. I guarantee, they are guidelines you can trust every time when it comes to the do’s and don’ts of business email.

Thanks for reading about how to send professional business email and make the perfect impression.

If I can help you in any way, please let me know. Click HERE to link to my professional development website.

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

Leading Change Through Uncertainty

All of us have a love hate relationship with change.  Behavioural Scientist have demonstrated we love change when we when we get a new car or upgrade our smartphone and have an understandable aversion to change when it upsets our routine, our security and/or when it happens suddenly. We are certainly experiencing change that is upsetting our business and how our teams are feeling and working.

In her book ‘The Psychology of Fear in Organizations’, author Sheila Keegan explores fear at work and leadership. Yet it’s fair to say that as a leader who is dealing with the challenges the COVID-19 Pandemic is creating, it is more critical than ever you hold your team together and guide them – and your business to success. As a corporate trainer, keynote speaker and executive coach specializing in leadership, team motivation and soft-skills I am happy to share a few recommendations leaders like you can use when leading change through uncertainty.

Face The Challenge Head-On

It is temporarily comforting to pretend change isn’t happening. If members of your team try to keep everything as it was they’ll soon find themselves standing alone. Even in less critical times the one truth about change is that it is always present and very persistent.

When faced with uncertainly people will undoubtably be exploring and likely grieving the loss they may face – everything from their job to their own sense of worth and value. Make sure your team members know how important they are to you, the team and the company.

There will be bumps, bruises and compromises that everyone is going to have to experience or make; especially if change is sudden and you are in ‘reaction mode’. Still, encourage everyone to see change as glass-half-full not glass-half-empty. Change can be an exciting growth opportunity for your organization and for your team members, both personally and professionally. 

Your job as a leader is to help your team face the challenge head-on and give them some comfortable footing. Help your team accept that together you are moving into a new normal and yes, the new normal is still unclear. Encourage them to see the details of your business have changed which means the details of their work has changed. Flexibility and adaptability are now critical moving forward.

Give Your Team A Foundation

Remind your team of your mission, vision and values. In times of uncertainly your vision may need to be adjusted but in most cases your mission (why your business exists), and especially your values (your guiding principles), should stay quite steady. Your mission, vision and values are amazingly important because they provide you and your team a stable foundation everyone will be able to count on for inspiration and consistent direction for everything they say, everything they do and ever decision they make.

Communication is critical here. As the leader be sure the scope of each person’s responsibilities are clearly defined (verbally and in writing) and in line with the organizations mission, vision and especially values. It’s important to remember people communicate and respond to interactions differently—you need to ensure you’re sharing information in a way that resonates with them, and through a channel they’re comfortable using.

Note, I think it is important to point out that up to now we’ve explored solutions based in using soft-skills and emotional intelligence. This is important because how people respond to change and uncertainty is often highly emotional – and if managed well they can set a positive tone to how and why a team will commit themselves and work together.

Share Responsibility

It’s completely natural for leaders who are facing uncertainty to take greater control of all decisions – to close ranks so to speak. Fight against this nature tendency – don’t become a bottleneck. Your team has amazing experience and education; be sure you benefit from it. If you take control over every decision you will be isolating important decisions from their experience and creativity and perhaps worst of all you will be stifling your team members sense of value and purpose.

There are a few places where a leader needs to take full control. For example, be unyielding about your organizational values. Be resolute about frequent communication and transparency. Be consistent about making sure everyone has the resources and support they need and feel valued. If you feel you must be involved in every decision, it’s very likely you need to do some changing of your own.

Give Your Team Focus

Focus your teams in two places at the same time. Some of your team members are experts at yesterday; it might be managing client relationships, payables and receivables or production. It’s also likely some of your team members are great at innovation and at looking into the future which may include people managing client relationships but also sales, service and if you have a new product development area. While one group stays in contact with your core clients and suppliers – demonstrating your organizational values, your other team searches for a way forward based on your businesses core competencies and, you guessed it… values.

Delegation and empowerment are critical in times of change. Be sure you benefit from your teams’ experience and education. Make sure you are taking advantage of their creativity and most importantly, not stifling everyone’s sense of value and purpose.

This may sound like two directives, but it is not. There can only be one plan and everyone at the senior level must support a focused goal of finding a new normal and migrating your mission, vision, values and operations to fulfilling that goal. As a leader your job is to keep these two groups empowering each other and working toward a new future. Everyone’s expectations – from the most senior to the most junior employee must be managed by clearly defining (verbally and in writing), the scope of each position’s responsibilities. 

Conclusion

According to Gerd Leonhard, a speaker, author and one of the world’s most prominent futurists, “There will be more changes in the next 20 years than in the previous 300 years.”

If we ever needed to be nimble and agile it is now and as leaders we have to help our teams do the same. Moving forward there will always be a need for change within ourselves, our team and our organizations; this is true even if we were not experiencing the COVID-19 Pandemic. By training ourselves to both think strategically and to be the coach that our teams need will mean we will always be ready to lead change through uncertainty while also being the empowering support system they need for us all to experience continued success.

Thank you for reading Leading Change Through uncertainty. If you have questions please let me know.

Bruce

Suggested Additional Reading: ‘Switch’ by the Heath brothers is an excellent book on change and how we all dislike it.

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer, Keynote Speaker and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

5 Stages of Team Development

How can you help your team succeed as a team and as individuals?

One important lesson I learned a long while ago is there are 5 stages of team development that every team passes through on its way to becoming an inspired high-performing team.

Cohesive teams don’t start out that way; they form over time and with hard work. Team members have to get to know each other for the team to reach peak effectiveness (stage #4). This is true in every situation including if you are:

• A leader joining an existing team

• Adding others to an existing team

• Putting together a brand-new team 

This knowledge has helped me be a better leader and executive coach. Now let me help you.

The 5 stages of team development i’ll be discussing with you were identified in 1965 by educational psychologist Bruce Tuckman. They are:

1. Forming

2. Storming

3. Norming

4. Performing

5. Adjourning

#1 Forming Stage

This stage is where team members meet each other, or where a new person is introduced to an existing team. Usually everyone is on their best behaviour until they find their place and learn about the other people. There is likely lots of uncertainty at this stage including the goals of the project and what the culture of the team will be like.

The leader’s role in this stage is to help the team get to know each other and explore the values, vision and goals associated with the task. As part of the team development, activities and group training should be designed to help everyone get to know each other and to begin setting a foundation of how the team will work and what the project goals are. Key training and agenda topics should include:

• Mission (for Department / Company / Team)

• Values

• Project / Team Goals

• Project / Team Timelines

• Expectations of team, working groups and individuals in relation to communication methods, shared documents, feedback, evaluation / measurements of success and work styles (work from home as an example)

• Leadership Support – who is the ‘Project Champion’

• Individual responsibilities

In addition to the above, I recommend including an icebreaker and team building / orientation exercise during this stage. As the team begins to work through these details people usually become more comfortable with each other and their place in the group.

It is important to note that at this stage, the actual project goal is not moving forward. What is happening is the team is beginning to build a foundation of trust that will define the team culture and support progress in the future.

Fair warning, just because you select a group of high-performing individuals you may not get a high-performing team. High-performing individuals don’t always have the ability to work in a collaborative environment.

#2 Storming Stage

As team members learn more about each other they begin to experience behaviours they like and respect as well as behaviours that rub them the wrong way (as my dad would say). Conflict begins to emerge as the politeness of the Forming stage wears off and individual communication styles, personal goals and internal competition become clearer. As identified in the graph above, the team is even less effective at this stage; this is likely because the team members have lost trust, cohesiveness and purpose.

The Storming and Norming stages are usually where many teams fail because conflicts are not resolved and trust is not established. It is important to note that conflict is natural and all healthy teams – all the best teams experience conflict and have also have learned ways to resolve it.

The leader is there to support their team with coaching and training aimed at helping team members build a process for communication, trust and mutual respect. The leaders job is to reduce tension by helping their team / team members engage in difficult conversations and help individuals learn how to resolve challenges between themselves and understand that differences sometimes add not subtract from the team. 

If i am coaching a client, the Storming stage is where I like to have a discussion about biases, because this is the stage that an individuals conscious and unconscious biases will be surfacing and they should watch out for this within their team.

Questions that the leader needs to help their team answer include:

• What is considered acceptable behaviour?

• How can we maximize our strengths?

• What are our learning opportunities?

• What are each other’s strengths?

• Know that when someone else shines it helps the team, doesn’t take away from my spotlight.

• Are agendas required for all meetings (please say yes to this)

• What Project Management technique do we use… and do we all know how to use it?

• How do we track performance?

The important thing for leaders is to help train their team – or get external training to make sure everyone knows how to manage conflict in a respectful and healthy way. Don’t try to avoid conflict. It is normal and can be healthy and be a good sign of a diverse team that have a variety of experiences and expertise.

Whatever you do, don’t overlook or diminish the importance of this step. No matter how experienced someone is, everyone has to be open to learning about themselves and each other at this stage.

#3 Norming Stage

What goes down must come up.

In the Norming stage team members begin to appreciate their team members’ strengths as well as find their own place. Trust, cohesiveness and purpose begin to emerge if the team is on the right track.

The team accepts a clear goal and aligns behind it. A leader’s job is to help each person take responsibility for tasks based on their own abilities and interests to grow while also ensuring they are meeting the expectations of other team members and the project / team goals. In short, everyone begins working together as a supportive team.

While trust and understanding are building, a team and/or its team members may fluctuate between Storming and Forming for some or all of its existence especially if new challenges or new team members are added.

If trust is not firmly established and a leader doesn’t clarify roles and expectations, then the team and project will likely fail. As stated earlier, the Storming and Norming stages are usually where many teams fail because conflicts are not resolved, and trust is not established.

#4 Performing Stage

It takes time to reach this stage, but this is the stage where the team becomes productive. If the leader takes on the role of coach and mentor with a desire to inspire their team and make sure they have the organizational support and training they need versus be their boss, it is likely the team will become a high-performing team.

At the Performing stage, everyone knows the Mission, Vision and Values as introduced in the Forming stage. In addition, they have learned what the Mission, Vision and Values mean which allows them to make strategically appropriate decisions without having to always get someone else’s opinion.

The team works together toward outcomes. And while disagreements may happen, challenges are met head-on and everyone works together to resolve them quickly – often by the team members alone. Collaboration remains a core strength towards the goal.

During the Preforming stage team members know who to go to for information, saving time and potential duplication. Also, quality increases with less waste on people’s time or resources. People perform well together, therefore, often feel a sense of contribution and intrinsic satisfaction / pride which further boosts engagement and productivity.

During a project a team may fall out of performing should new people be added to the team and/or if the project goals change (for example). These may move the team back to Forming, Storming and/or Norming until a new equilibrium is established.

Instead of being a referee or task master, leaders take on the strategic roll including:

• Supporting the project with appropriate resources, talent and training

• Supporting team members individual goals and performance

• Inspiring and motivating employees and the team

• Coordinating value added messaging… and lots of it

• Managing project performance, budgets and timelines

When the team is working well, they will automatically adjust on a daily basis with little to no required ‘management’ from the leader.

#5 Adjourning Stage

Without surprise, the Adjourning stage is about saying goodbye, the project is over. Now, this may be seen as unfortunate, but if the process has been a productive one this can be a time of celebration. And, just because this project is over it does make time and resources available for the next opportunity and learning curve.

After Adjourning I would recommend the team and each individual take a moment to consider what they have learned about themselves and about specific skills. Strictly as a learning process (not to take away from the glory of their success), highly productive teams often reflect on the past project and ask, ‘If I could change how I did X, I would have…’ and then move on. 

While team development is the main topic of this blog post, you may also be interested in a blog I wrote called ‘Why Trust Matters and How To Build Trust At Work’.

Conclusion:

The leader plays an important role through all stages mentoring and coaching team members through these stages.

For teams to be effective, team members must be able to work together and contribute to their shared goals. But this does not happen automatically: it develops as the team works together and learns together.

Remember, teams that fail usually fail at stage 2 and 3. The best thing a leader can do here is help their team understand the conflict they are experiencing and to grow from it. Don’t try to avoid conflict; it is normal and can be healthy.

Thank you for reading. If you have questions please let me know

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer, Keynote Speaker and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

Working Well: 8 Recommendations To Be Productive Working From Home.

Last night I was on a conference call with a friend who asked me what my working from home best practices were. They thought I would have some good recommendations since I’ve been working from home for close to 20 years and also teach / speak on Time Management, Email Etiquette, Generational Differences and Leadership – not to mention consult about creating productive teams who work from home.

So, because of my friends question, let me share with you 8 recommendations to be productive working from home.

1. Prepare For Tomorrow

A great time management tip whether you work from home or in an office is to always prepare for tomorrow.

As you finish your day, you are in the best place to plan your 3 most important things to accomplish the next day. I recommend writing them down on a pad of paper that will sit on your desk as a constant reminder – not electronically.  I find during the night I sometimes have ideas related to those tasks so, I send myself a quick email or write it down somewhere so I clear my head; I know that if I don’t write it down the idea will keep distracting me all night.

2. Have a Dedicated Space

Especially if you are new to working from home you might not have a dedicated office space. Do this as soon as you can… and especially, don’t work from your bed… for many reasons.

Here are two reasons to try to have a dedicated space: 

• You will be more productive at a desk with a large monitor than working on your laptop screen. I love my laptop – it is my main workplace, but I use a docking station that connects it to a large monitor and I have an external mouse, keyboard and perhaps most importantly… I have a good chair.

• You are able stop your day, get away and start up again the next day quickly. As best you can, set up a system where you are not looking at your work all night and all weekend. You have to be able to turn work off, and having a separate space lets you do this… but get back into whatever you were working on quickly when you do want to.

3. Eliminate Clutter 

There are a thousand studies that say we work better when we are not piled up with clutter. You might not be the tidest of people – fine, but don’t have your workspace piled up with old files, projects, magazines and dirty dishes. 

4. Use Appropriate Software

Other than your standard office suite which I won’t comment on, you and your office mates should get familiar with some cloud-based apps that are build to specifically help people who work remotely and are responsive to tablets, laptops, smartphones etc.. For example:

• For Instant Messaging and Team Chat – look into Slack

• For Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars and Meetings – look into Zoom

• For Effective Project Management that lets you work more collaboratively – look into Trello

When exploring technology it’s also important to explore how Email fits with the newer communication tools like Video Conferencing (Zoom) and Instant Messaging (Slack) in order to create balanced communication throughout your team - especially with teams working remotely some or all of the time.

5. Assign Deadlines To Your Work And Expectations  

Set deadlines for yourself. If you need something from other people, agree with them on what the deadline / delivery date is.

Setting deadlines keeps you and other people productive, and I believe equally important, setting deadlines manages everybody’s expectations. Without setting expectations you may be waiting around for something that is not a priority for the other person which risks your current project and can put a strain on your relationship as well as future work.  

6. Pre-book Team or Project Meeting For The Same Time Of Day   

Meetings will come and go, but you should pre-book team or project meetings at the same time so they are predictable for everyone.

Another time management tip is to not book meetings until late morning or the afternoon. You are at your strategic, creative best in the morning so protect that time for your most important work. But, if you have to do brainstorming on an important project you might want to set a one-off meeting in the morning to get everyone when you / they are fresh and well-rested.  

7. Reduce Distractions  

You know what distracts you and what does not. Do your best to eliminate all distractions – even the subtle ones. Common distractions include:

• The TV or Radio…. Even as background noise they can pull your attention… and are annoying for others when you are on conference calls.

• Other people in the room

• Children – playing or wanting your help

• Cooking sounds / smells

• The refrigerator or pantry

Leave me a comment below to let me know what your distraction is… or distractions are.

8. Be Social  

Working from home can feel isolating. It’s mentally and physically healthy if you can get out for a walk a few times a day. Take advantage of the social opportunities you have… like when you go grocery shopping make a point of saying hi to the cashier. Get to know your neighbours – just saying hi to them when you see them is nice. And, of course call and meet up with friends / family.

For work, don’t always use email and text messages. It’s far too easy to let our fingers do all our communication, but we actually communicate much better information when we use our video conferencing software. Make a point to have a video chat even for quick questions. You will likely be more creative and save time and the bonus is you will have been social at the same time which helps us feel connected with the outside world and as an added bonus will help you build trusting work relationships.

One Last Thought:

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure." - Colin Powell, American politician and retired four-star general in the United States Army.

I hope you enjoyed my 8 recommendations to be productive working from home. I would like to hear your tips and best practices. Email me or leave a comment below.

If i can help you in any way, please let me know. Click HERE to link to my professional development website.

Bruce

#WorkFromHomeTip #WorkRemotely #HR #stayhomechallenge #Work #TimeManagement

About Bruce Mayhew

Bruce is Corporate Trainer and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

Call me at 1 416 617 0462

Email me at bruce@brucemayhewconsulting.com 

10 Quick Tips for Video Conversations

Being able to hear… and be heard clearly is important while we are working from home and having video conversations / video conferencing.

A few easy adjustments can help you sound professional and remove distractions for you and the people you are speaking with. To help you, here are 10 quick tips for video conversations if you are using your desktop, laptop, tablet or phone.

1. Position your camera at eye level or a bit higher (rather than a bit lower), and make sure you are centered on the screen. Nobody needs to look at your forehead or ceiling during the call.

2. Try to get lighting that is pointed in your direction and close to the camera… not behind you (this is really important to take away shadows on your face). Overhead light is good to help balance light, especially if it’s on a dimmer and you can adjust it. Try using a shade mute the harshness of any direct light.

3. Use a headset so you can hear people more clearly, especially if there are many people on the call and so you don’t bother others near you.

4. Use an external microphone to improve the clarity of your voice, especially if there are many people on the call. This can also reduce background noise for the others on the call.

5. Try not to talk over other people.

6. If there are many people on the call let them know it’s you speaking… even if it’s a video call and especially if there are people who may not recognize your voice. A quick, ‘Bruce here’ goes a long way.

7. Speak slowly and clearly, especially if you know you typically speak quickly.

8. Know how to reach your audience by phone, text or email if you experience technical difficulties.

9. Spend 2-minutes ahead of time to write down a few notes about important information you want to share / cover. Use a pad of paper, not on the device you will be using for the call.

10. Dress as if you are meeting in person!

Video conferencing and video conversations are gaining in popularity because they are a great way to improve communication, understanding and build a sense of team between two or more people. Done well, video conferencing can be just as good as being there… without all the time wasted by traveling. Without a doubt, if you are trying to brainstorm a plan or talk through a challenge, video conferencing and video conversations are far superior than email or even phone conversations.

And don’t worry, you don’t have to break the bank to get your work from home station set up with better technology.

For me, points 3 and 4 were the ones I had to fix in my work from home office. Where do you think your biggest gains will be?

BONUS: A Few More Things.

1. Being able to share your computer screen is very helpful between team members. I won’t get into it here, but this is something you may want to look into and make sure everyone knows how to do this.

2. Minimize how many online tabs / websites you have open. Close as many as you can so they don’t slow down your computer and internet bandwidth.

3. Turn off notifications for your calendar, email and other apps. Do this also for other devices that are near by.

4. Clean up the space behind you. Nobody needs to be distracted by a mess… or wonder if your work quality is as messy as your office.

Thanks for reading 10 Quick Tips for Video Conversations.

If i can help you in any way, please let me know. Click HERE to link to my professional development website.

Bruce

#WorkFromHomeTip #WorkRemotely #HR #stayhomechallenge #Work #VideoConversations

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

Working From Home Team Building Questions

Working from home or working remotely is suddenly something we are all doing. Unfortunately, working remotely can also make people feel disconnected and not important to a project which will in-turn hurt productively, employee engagement and employee loyalty.

A brilliant way to keep and build trust within your team while also helping them feel important, connected and engaged is to schedule regular team conference calls as well as one-on-one calls. But, remote calls – even if you include video can begin to feel dry, rehearsed and prescriptive… in short… un-motivating. The solution to keeping these calls interesting is to incorporate virtual team building into some (not necessarily all – especially if you have meetings every morning) of your calls.

I have a list of 100 virtual team building ideas so you’ve come to the right place if you are looking for ideas. Feel free to call me if you would like to discuss / brainstorm these in person. For now I’m going to offer you 25 'working from home team building questions that are safe (and not too personal) that you can use at the beginning of team conference calls.

I hope these 25 team building questions help you build connection and trust within your team… and most of all I hope they help your team communicate more effectively so that each person is a productive, creative and happy individual. 

1. Who has a Pet… or if you’ve had a pet what was it / which one was your favourite?

2. Who was born outside of Canada (or wherever you are located)? Where were you born?

3. Who has lived in more than one province in Canada (or wherever you are located)?

4. If you could live anywhere on this planet where would you live?

5. Who doesn’t drive?

6. Who likes Brussel Sprouts?

7. What is your favourite / least favourite thing to do? Laundry, Grocery shopping, Cooking?

8. Who is an early riser?

9. Who knows how to swim?

10. Do you speak more than 2 languages (doesn’t have to be 100% fluent)? Which ones?

11. If you could go back to school for 1 whole year and study anything, what would you study?

12. Are you a ‘sweet’ person or a ‘salty / savoury’ person?

13. What is your favourite concert or play you’ve ever seen?

14. What is your favourite book you’ve read? (or Who has read Catcher in the Rye or at least one Harry Potter book?)

15. Have you ever binge watched anything – and if you have, what was it and why?

16. What have you ever made that was artistic (paint, sew, draw, play music etc.)?

17. Who plays or has played a musical instrument? What do / did you play?

18. Who would consider themselves a ‘Treky’ (Star Trek)? If yes, which series was the best and why?

19. If you could choose one age and stay that age forever, how old would you choose and why?

20. If you could have one superpower, which one would you choose and why? (I would be Batman because he has great toys… and his name is Bruce)

21. Which season is your favourite? Fall, Winter, Spring, or Summer and why?

22. Would you prefer to go to the mountains or the beach?

23. What is the coolest vacation you have ever taken?

24. What is your favourite food?

25. If you could meet and have dinner with anyone would it be?

All remote teams face the challenge of positive, trusting team engagement. It’s easy to lose the laughter and comic relief… the familiar and trusting connection employees build when they see each other in person and have casual talks in the morning or when going for a coffee together. The more your team know of each other the more likely you will have a proud, creative, energized, productive team that will have each others back.

I hope this article has been helpful. There are more Leadership Skills, Email Etiquette, Time Management and Meeting Management articles and workshops train on, but these are some of the most important. If you want more information on those I’m happy to help – let me know.

Thanks for reading Working From Home Team Building Questions.

If i can help you in any way, please let me know. Click HERE to link to my professional development website.

Bruce

#WorkFromHomeTip #WorkRemotely #HR #stayhomechallenge #Work

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

Call me at 1 416 617 0462

Email me at bruce@brucemayhewconsulting.com

An Employees Guide To Working From Home / Working Remotely

Lots of information already exists to help leaders introduce a ‘working from home’ / ‘working remotely’ culture. I thought now would be a good time for me to take a different approach and offer some coaching / professional development training aimed at everyday employees who are and/or will be working remotely perhaps for the first time.

The following are 7 main challenges… and solutions I believe are important to being a productive, proud and well-balanced employee. At the end of this post is also a link to my website and contact information in case you want to get hold of me and have some specific questions - I’m always happy to help.

Before I start however I want to say that as much as remote work seems like the latest trend that everyone should want more than anything, the reality is working remotely isn’t easy and certainly not for everyone. On that, it isn’t one-size-fits all either. What works for me might not work for you and visa versa. For example, I know many people who work well in a busy coffee-shop while for me they are simply places where I get distracted.

Challenge 1. Feeling Isolated

One of the biggest challenges you might experience is feeling isolated, alone and disconnected to your coworkers and to projects. This is understandable since many office workers don’t realize how much important information is shared during scheduled and impromptu meetings, hollering over each other’s partitions or chatting on the way to a meeting, lunch or grabbing a coffee. 

If you are finding yourself working from home / working remotely, make specific effort to do two things:

1. Look for opportunities to make a phone call or better yet, a video call to discuss a project or issue. It may seem like it takes time to ‘call’ or ‘link’ but I assure you, the quality and quantity of information you can share in a voice call is far greater than what most of us could type into an email… or that our readers would pay attention to.

2. Even if you have no business purpose, take the extra effort to make a call just to say hi and do a casual check-in.

Photo by Anna auza

Challenge 2. Introvert versus Extravert

Introverts gain energy and are often more productive when they work alone, while extroverts gain energy and work better when they have the opportunity to spend time with other people. Introverts will seek out quiet spaces with few people while extroverts will often seek out public spaces and crowds of people they can talk with.

For us introverts working from home / working remotely, this may be one of those odd times where we have an advantage because we usually do well working alone. But still, I encourage all you introverts not to forget to check in and hear other people’s voices.

For extraverts, because you do well when you are in contact with other people it will be natural for you to want to reach out by phone and with video conferencing. This is your opportunity to help your coworkers (perhaps the introverts), who may be hesitant to reaching out. Do them a favour and ask for a call and/or video call. 

Challenge 3. Manage Project / Work Expectations

It’s natural for us to use email - especially when we are not near to the person we need to connect with. But take care, as I share when I deliver Email Etiquette training, email was designed as a confirmation tool. Email is not good for brainstorming or discussing options. It’s natural for you and I to interpret something we read (or write), in an email as ‘decision made’.

Many people think writing very brief email is a good thing. The unfortunate thing is writing a brief email often sounds pushy, demanding or bossy. If you are feeling ‘triggered’ by what someone has written I recommend giving people the benefit of the doubt because email tone can be interpreted much differently than the writer intended. An interesting experiment would be to take a look at your own email; if you were to receive them do they sound positive and courteous or cold and abrupt?

When you have options, proactively manage your expectations and the expectations of your coworkers / suppliers / customers. As I said earlier, I recommend picking up the phone – you will share information more quickly and be more creative. If you do use email:

• Say Hi or Hello… and use their name (this lowers the abrupt tone of email). If you email with the person 20 times per day say hi only once.

• Mention you are offering an option for discussion and look forward to their ideas / input / suggestions.

• Use bullets if you have two or more points. Just like I’ve done in this example. Bullets are great because they create a visual reminder.

• Use a descriptive Subject Line with 5-7 words. 

Challenge 4. Prepare for Meetings

Meetings will continue… and make sure they do; they will simply be over the phone or on a video call. I very seriously recommend that even for a meeting with one other person that you write / share an email in advance to identify topics you want to discuss. This email will help you get clear on what you want to talk about (and why), and it will also help your coworker / supplier prepare. Topics you might like to cover include:

• Questions you have

• Ideas or suggestions you have

• Points of concern

I hesitate to call this a meeting agenda but that’s exactly what it is. Agendas have a bad reputation as being complicated… so don’t let them be. I bet you can do this with 2 sentences (which includes meeting time and connection information) and a few bullets. Give it a try.

Challenge 5. Follow Up after Meetings

I’m thrilled you’ve taken my advice in Challenge #4 and sent a quick meeting agenda email. Now, send an equally short message after the meeting by using the Reply All button which outlines the decisions that were made. This way, you will be managing everyone’s expectations (including your own), by having created a simple record everyone can fall back on days and weeks later. 

Challenge 6. Other People are Home With You

If working remotely was a hasty decision by your company you might find other family members are also at home and not used to you working from home. You may also have a partner who is working and/or children who are doing homework, playing or everyone in different rooms watching Netflix.

Focus is a priority if you are going to be able to concentrate and work strategically. Three things I recommend:

• Most of us do our best to work in a quiet area… or at least not chaotic areas. If you are like me and noise distracts you, consider investing in noise cancellation headphones.

• Try to find a space that is all your own - at least during the day. Find a comfortable table and chair and a water bottle / coffee mug (with a lid).

• When you are on a phone or video call do your absolute best to be in a quiet area and always use a headset / earbuds. I recommend using a headset / earbuds even if you are by yourself since it will help the other person / people on the call hear you clearly. 

Challenge 7. Take Time To Step Away - Take Breaks

When working from home you can often find you get to your computer and start working earlier in the morning than if you were traveling to the office. Then, before you know it the morning has passed. If you do stop to go to the kitchen for coffee or lunch… or take the dog outside, you rush back to the office. The thing is, study after study demonstrates the importance taking breaks and its impact on increased productivity and creativity.

When you work in a typical office there are distractions that are natural - from meetings, impromptu conversations to having to walking to a food court for coffee or lunch. These mental breaks are important. So, make it a priority to take the same time to stop working for 10 or 15 minutes a few times each day. Put in a load of laundry - or better yet, get some air by walking around the block. Just don’t fall down the social media vortex and lose an hour.

I hope this article dedicated to you - the employee has been helpful. There are more Email Etiquette, Time Management. Meeting Management and Leadership Skills I train on but these are some of the most important. If you want more information on those I’m happy to help – let me know.

Thanks for reading An Employees Guide To Working From Home / Working Remotely.

If i can help you in any way, please let me know. Click HERE to link to my professional development website.

Bruce

#WorkFromHomeTip #WorkRemotely #HR #stayhomechallenge #Work

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

How To Host Your Perfect Meeting

I love meetings. But not so much that I call them or want to go to them when they are not needed.

I also love when everyone walks out of meetings thinking, “Wow – that was productive. I wish every meeting could be like that.” When that happens not only am I (and all of us), rewarded with the information we need in a timely manner, when it is a meeting I’ve called my professional reputation is also rewarded for hosting a meeting that was productive, managed peoples expectations and didn’t waste peoples time (a nod to good time management).

So, lets explore how to host your perfect meeting.

My recommendation on how to host your perfect meeting is to break the process down into three sections namely, Before, During and After the meeting.

How To Host Your Perfect Meeting: Before the Meeting

To host your perfect meeting I hope the word ‘Agenda’ is one of the first things that comes to mind. I don’t want you to despair thinking you have to create a formal - stuffy agenda. For most meetings, throw that idea to the curb.

First, imagine a simple email that includes a few sentences that will tell attendees ‘why’ they will want to go. Share with them the goals, the projected outcomes and a short overview of how these outcomes will benefit them. Then include a bullet list of key topics / headlines that will be explored. Also, if you send information you want them to review, state it as an action item. Just attaching the document does not mean they will read it. So ask them to.

Next, book an appropriate room. Find a room that is large enough (not too large) for the meeting and that has the equipment you need.

Lastly, include Logistical Information that a person will need to arrive on time. Especially if you have external employees, new employees or suppliers from outside the company, be sure to detail logistics like building address, directions, parking options for people not familiar with your office. Please, don’t glance over this – as someone who frequently attends meetings at buildings I’ve never been at, 1-minute of your time can save me loads of time searching for where to park. Also include room name / number and Start Time / End Time clearly on the agenda (and I recommend including in email subject Line if sending the notice out by email).

Agenda and Notice EXAMPLE:

Subject Line: Sales & Product Development: Meeting Design & Best Practices

I am scheduling a meeting so the Sales and Product Development team can explore best practices associated to running a meeting. Our goal is to design and agree upon / approve a format that everyone can use in the department moving forward.

As department heads, please come with a short list of your suggestions. You may wish to have a quick discussion with your team to get their ideas so you can bring them forward. I have also attached a one-page pdf file for us all to review in advance for context. At the meeting we will explore:

• Before A Meeting (Planning)

• During A Meeting

• Following A Meeting

Logistics:

• Sales & Product Development: Meeting Design & Best Practices [Yes, this is a repeat of the Subject Line]

• Tuesday: April 10: 1:30PM

• Rogers Building: 333 Bloor St E, Toronto

• 8th floor – Maple Leaf Room

• Paid underground parking off of Jarvis, south of Bloor

Note: If your meeting is going to be long – like a training event, snacks and possibly meals need to be considered.

At the Meeting

Hopefully you can get into the room a few minutes in advance to set up. I know this sounds pretty obvious but you might be surprised how often it doesn’t happen. Make sure the chairs are aligned as necessary and that any technology you need has been turned on and presentations are loaded and standing by. Having everyone sit and watch you set up for 10 minutes is not good and you just may lose people. If you don’t lose them at this meeting – you might not get them to come on time to your next meeting… because your reputation as an organized meeting host will have been compromised.

Note: If you can’t get into the room before, plan ahead, book the meeting room for 30 minutes before you need it so you will have loads of time to get the previous meeting out… and get you set up.

Start the meeting on time.

Begin by confirming attendees and introducing special guests. Then, formally go over your objective / goal and then the main points on the agenda.

Stick to your agenda. If someone brings up things that are not on your agenda, I recommend one of two things.

1. Park the item and book another meeting to address it.

2. Park the meeting to the end of your meeting, and if your meeting ends early you can review as long as all of the important people are in attendance. If they are not, discussing it will be a waste of time and you will need to book another meeting anyway.

Control people who are speaking a bit too much… and encourage people who are staying silent (they may need our help).

Before anyone departs, recap and confirm agreement on:

• Decisions made

• Action times (what, who and when)

End on time… or early.

After the Meeting

Send out Meeting Minutes as soon as possible. I mean in hours not days.

Like the Agenda, the minutes don’t have to be fancy or complicated. I like the idea of a quick email which outlines the agenda, discussion key points, decisions made and the action items including the what, who and when these action items be fulfilled.

Sending out Meeting Minutes – even really simple minutes are important. If you don’t, everyone will begin to slowly move the decisions made to align with their needs and goals versus the planned goals. So, if person A starts migrating their idea of the decisions to their needs and person B starts migrating their idea to their needs, within a very short week there can be a very large gap between what A and B believe they need to work on and what they actually agreed to. A simple 2 or 3 sentence summaries can solve that challenge… and eliminate the need for many difficult conversations.

Conclusion

In-person or video meetings are one of the best ways to share complicated or sensitive information, discuss / brainstorm options or to provide your team professional development training. Meetings are also amazing at building a cohesive, trusting team environment. But, they have to be done well… and the agreed upon structure has to be followed by everyone. This is where your leadership is imperative in supporting the meeting management standard you come up with. Employees have to see you walking the walk.

Thanks for reading up on How To Host Your Perfect Meeting.

If i can help you in any way, please let me know. Here is my website Meeting Management Training page.

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

Effective Meeting Management: How to Run Effective Meetings

You have a great team. For their professional development, as well as the benefit of the company, you want to help them run effective meetings. You’ve seen how they suffer through long, unproductive, time-wasting meetings that go off-track and leave them wondering why they were invited.

I applaud you for wanting to make a difference. By wanting to help your team run effective meetings you’ll also be able to save time, save money, reduce waste, increase productivity, improve your employees workplace satisfaction… and i could go on. Yep, meeting management training is a Win-Win.

Before we go deeper into this, I want to invite you to cut everyone some slack (including yourself), who has hosted an insufferable meeting. Why? Because no school I know of teaches an Effective Meeting Management 101 course. This means most people host meetings based on what they learned by watching others. Thankfully, that was yesterday and you’re making sure tomorrow will be a brand new day!

The first challenge you will face as you help your team run effective meetings is the need to change corporate culture. As the book title by Erin L. Bouma says, ‘Big Ships Turn Slowly.’’ Even if your company is small or if you are focused on improving one team, changing a persons behaviour isn’t the easiest thing to do – even if they are willing participants. But you are dedicated (yea), so to change the way your team runs meetings you will need two things:

• Unwavering leadership commitment (this means you if you are only focusing on your team)

• Individual employee commitment… from everyone

Unwavering Leadership Commitment

I’m going to assume you have the unwavering leadership support… or you are the unwavering leadership support. Still, it’s worth doing a quick review of two important things. First, leaders have to support the new corporate meeting management standard you are going to build. Second, employees have to be confident that their leaders will consistently and unwaveringly stand by them. This means (for example):

• If there is no agenda people have the right to ask for one before they commit their time.

• Individuals are able to decline an invitation when the invitation doesn’t help them know why they were invited.

• Meetings start on time and end on time – and if people come in late that the meeting doesn’t start over.

• Minutes are always taken which mention items discussed, decisions made and / or action items (this can be a simple email after the meeting).

This is how we make sure that if we are going to attend a meeting that they will be meetings that we were proud to attend, proud of what we contributed and proud of what everyone accomplished… together. This is how we build a sense of team where everyone is efficient and has pride in the work they do. And, this is how we make sure the meetings we go to are those meetings not the long drawn out horrible type.

Individual Employee Commitment

Next we have to look at individual commitment. It’s worth noting that as the leader you’ll have a good idea of how you think meetings need to change and, you’ll have defined what you believe should be the meeting management objectives. But as we all know, the best way to get commitment is to make people part of the solution. So, have an exploratory session with your team. As you go through this exploration I bet you’ll find your team will have a few important ideas – so, stay open minded. To begin your exploration with your team I recommend spending time with two important questions.

1. “What do great meetings look like?”

2. “What are the effective meeting guidelines we will adopt?”

I would like to bring specific attention to the positive nature of these two questions. They are looking at what greatness does look like and what best practices your team does want to adopt. The positive nature of this approach is uplifting / empowering; I bet you will feel great energy. This approach is called Appreciative Inquiry which I’ve explored in other blog posts. I encourage you to not spend much time exploring negativity… like what makes bad meetings. If you feel you do need to discuss what doesn’t work, put a timeframe on it – perhaps 5-minutes and then get back to encouraging positive energy and what people can do.

Effective Meeting Guidelines

I bet you might hear someone say, “The best meeting is a meeting I don’t have to go.” And you know – they may be right considering their world today, but our goals is to turn their next meeting into their best meeting… again and again. So, let’s stay positive and think about what we want to happen in the meetings we go to; behaviours like:

• Agendas are created and shared using the agreed upon template structure

• Only relevant people are invited

• Everyone attends who is supposed to attend – and they come prepared

• Meetings start on time and end on time (or end early)

• Discussions get to the point and stay on topic

• Discussions stay positive (Appreciative Inquiry)

• Information is shared in a clear and respectful manner

• Decisions are made and action items are summarized before anyone leaves

• Meeting minutes are shared soon after the meeting using the agreed upon templated structure

As you begin to implement these new meeting guidelines you’ll see first hand that everyone will begin to be happy when they attend meetings and begin to think, ‘WOW I just accomplished something, and I feel great.’

Conclusion

Remember, changing meeting management means changing corporate culture and changing individuals habits… changing how they have always worked in the past. This change you stay committed, and that you correct and support people with ‘what they can do’ versus ‘what they did wrong’. By doing this… and by staying positive (not punitive), you will find your corporate culture and the way people run meetings will change quickly. There will be a few growing pains, but remember, ‘Big Ships Turn Slowly,’ but wow – how great it is when the turn has happened.

Thanks for reading up on Meeting Management and How to Run Effective Meetings.

If i can help you in any way, please let me know. Here is my website Meeting Management Training page.

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

10 Tips to Lead Your Team Through Change

Leading teams is a wonderful, rewarding challenge. And while most of us would not want to spend our whole career in the middle of change, leading teams through change is often even more of a rewarding challenge.

So, what does leading your team through change mean? Whether it is change for only one product line or change for the whole company, there are many special places leaders need to pay attention to support change. Where should a leader / leadership team begin you ask? Here are 10 steps.

1. Create a plan starting with research. Speak with your stakeholders and listen to their objectives and concerns. From there define your goal. What internal talent and external talent will be involved? How do you keep people engaged who are not directly involved in the change initiative, but who you need to be supportive? Where will the biggest challenges be and how can you prepare to face them head on and minimize their impact.

2. Understand the end goal. It's critical to understand the end goal and objectives before starting out. This includes what is the evidence to support the goal?

3. Anticipate a need for flexibility. No plan is perfect, and no market is stable. Things like opportunity, technology and manpower change every day. What is your plan to keep yourself and your team in an adaptable and flexible mindset?

4. Share the plan with everyone and communicate it clearly. Leaders need to support their plan in context to every conversation they have, every meeting and every business decision. In addition, be prepared to discuss the intrinsic value of change for everyone involved – from the company all the way through to employees, suppliers and customers. Don’t make it only about costs and revenue (extrinsic value). People have to feel proud of what and why their world is changing.

5. Remember your people are people – this goes for employees, customers and suppliers. Be prepared for them to ask questions and encourage them to share their concerns. Demonstrate your commitment to them and the process. Also, recognize great work from both the people who are directly involved in the change initiative as well as those who are holding down the fort (as my dad would say), and making sure everything else is working as it should.

6. Identify champions and support those people who are respected / looked up to and great networkers. These people are likely naturally positive (glass-half-full) and patient. Your champions should be able to clearly articulate the values of the company and the value of the change initiative.

7. Delegate tasks. Everyone has to feel they are an important part of the team - it should not be something that only a ‘special few’ ever participate in or take credit for. Even the people whose work may not be changing have to see that their stability provides a foundation for the change initiative to happen.

8. Set stable, realistic objectives. This and the next step go hand-in-hand and are important for leaders to do whether they are working on a change initiative or not. To be a great leader one has to set stable, realistic objectives that everyone understands. Big-picture objectives become department objectives and then translate into individual objectives. Stable, realistic objectives allow everyone to ‘see’ how, when and why they are contributing.

9. Manage expectations. Stay connected with customers, suppliers and employees. Keep everyone informed. It’s good project management where everyone knows what is going on, and the same is true for change management. In addition, within a change environment leaders should expect conflicts will arise due to fear of status, a team members’ lack of clarification or perhaps fatigue from short-term longer than usual working hours. Whatever the reason leaders must expect this will happen and be prepared to have difficult conversations that will resolve conflict in a constructive and positive way.

10. Hold people accountable. If change is going to be successful leaders have to depend on their resources. In the case where an objective is slipping, don’t let it linger hoping it will self-correct. Get on it quickly. As with #3, anticipate flexibility. Perhaps someone’s assigned task can’t be completed as expected. That’s OK – they can still be held accountable for raising concern as soon as possible and working with the team to make necessary adjustments. 

I believe communication is a leaders most important ability when it comes to change and change management. Being a motivating, inspiring leader who demonstrates you are proud of your team and committed to open and respectful communication will be your greatest ability… equalled only with planning thoroughly and staying flexible.

There is always going to be more that could be said about change management and leading change, but I believe these 10 tips to lead your team through change gives you a good grasp of the basics. Just be careful, don’t underestimate the value of planning ahead and preparing for change. That said, don’t paralyze your initiative by getting into the loop of over-planning. One thing you may want to explore is the benefits of both Agile Project Management as Traditional Project Management. Both may have some place within your change management plans.

One final note about why we need to embrace change. If we don’t accept that change is a constant we risk falling behind our competition and failing to meet our clients’ needs. We also risk losing important talent if they:

a) Don’t feel supported and kept in-the-loop or
b) Feel their abilities and experience are falling behind their peers because change is being ignored. 

Best to embrace the challenge, the hard work and the benefits change brings us. Thanks for reading.

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

4 Ways To Rediscover Your Passion

You deserve the best, and in the interest of doing what’s best for you and the people closest to you it’s a great idea to pause once in a while to rediscover your passion.

You and I love routine because it helps us be productive and efficient. And while change and learning slows you and I down, routine turns us into experts. It’s a great feeling knowing we are ‘The best’ or ‘One of the best’. Unfortunately routine has a way of derailing our bigger plans at work and at home. So, I recommend getting into the habit of pressing ‘Pause’ on your routine in order to rediscover your passion.

Here are 4 ways to rediscover your passion that I’ve found helpful.

Slow Down:

Arrange time for you to listen to yourself. Spend a weekend alone, no radio or TV. You are not a bad employee or bad parent if you arrange for the kids to spend the weekend with their grandparents or if you turn off work for a few days. Perhaps even add to this a week vacation from work.

When you arrange for time alone, don’t spend your time keeping busy by rearranging closets, painting the kitchen or reading. The idea is to find your passion and purpose by doing things like sitting quietly and going for long walks; basically, letting yourself be bored. Being bored is a good thing. When you are bored your mind begins to explore… and your subconscious will keep going to what interests it.

Thing is, you will begin to rediscover your passion and begin to find the answers you’ve been searching for when you listen to yourself.

Talk To A Professional Therapist:

Arrange for 2-hour appointments because in 1-hour you might just start getting comfortable. Both therapists and trained executive coaches can help you explore your goals and make changes. However, if you are feeling emotionally charged it might be best to begin by seeing a therapist who has the licensure and training to address specific issues like anxiety.

Therapy often helps people increase their self-awareness by exploring the past and identifying the roots of important issues. After seeing a therapist, if there are no bigger issues an executive coach might be exactly what you need.

Celebrate Your Wins:

Reflect on your big wins of the past and celebrate them. Then begin working on getting into the habit of celebrating your small wins every day.

Too often we overlook what meaningful contribution we make every day and how satisfying our accomplishments make us feel. Instead of helping our passion flourish we fluff our accomplishments off as being “What my job expects,” or “What any good parent would do.” But guess what, you did do it and nobody ever did it the way you did because you are unique. And, while you are at it, give yourself time to notice when you’ve been connected to your passions.

Write:

To rediscover your passion I recommend putting pen to paper versus using a computer – your thoughts will generate differently when you write by hand. During your weekend alone, find time twice a day to set a timer for 10-minutes and write. Write anything and don’t stop to think. If you don’t know what to write next, write bla bla bla until a new idea emerges. Answer any question that comes to mind, but start considering questions like:

• Of all the things I do, I am most happy when…

• I am most proud of…

• I’ve always wanted to…

• I would like to work with…

• When I was younger, I thought I would…

Conclusion:

Most of all, remember you are amazing. You are unique. Nobody else has your unique combination of experiences, natural strengths, education, learned skills and creativity. You have something great to offer yourself, your friends, your family and your employer.

And one last thing; when you try something new expect to not be perfect… but spend time reflecting on what you did well and where you could improve. When you were younger it took time for you to learn to drive a car and now you do it without thinking. Why should any other skill be different just because you are older? Before you know it, you will be great at it. We all need to push past our fear of failure, of not being the expert… and most of all… our fear of not looking perfect at every moment.

I hope you take some time to rediscover your passion… and to then help your passion flourish

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

An Introduction to Agile Project Management Methodology

What is Agile Project Management?

Although it began to evolve in the 1970s and 1980s, Agile Project Management is still a somewhat new approach to project management. It differs from Traditional Project Management because it breaks large projects into smaller projects and expects changing priorities throughout very short development cycles called ‘Sprints’. A Sprint is often only 2 to 12-weeks long (although the trend is narrowing development times to 2 to 8-weeks).

Agile Project Management is a great solution when the business needs, customer needs and/or the competitive pressures require frequent change or when the business wants to experience the benefits of development investment more frequently. This is one reason why Agile is so common in software development environments. And while projects using an Agile Project Management methodology usually move faster and are more responsive to customer needs, each project should still be part of a larger development plan / vision and be respectful of the available people, time and other resources… not to mention other ongoing projects.

A Quick Look At Traditional Project Management

Traditional Project Management is often defined as having detailed start-to-finish planning with locked-down features and long development cycles… often between 6-months to multiple years. With Traditional the business usually doesn’t see tangible value until the end of the project.

If your goals are 100% defined and not likely to change then Traditional is a viable solution. Also, Traditional is still beneficial in environments that may be heavily regulated, heavily procedure-based, hierarchical workspaces and / or when a project plan can be used by other teams or locations over and over again. For example, construction is a common space using Traditional Project Management.

In many cases it doesn’t have to be all Agile or all Traditional. Many industries a combination of Agile Project Management and Traditional Project depending on the project.

A Few Of The Many Benefits of Agile:

Just about any project can use Agile. One key benefit of Agile Project Management is the fast delivery of development solutions. In addition, four core feature of Agile are:

1. Up-front input by customers on the scope of the development goals. This usually means solutions have the greatest chance to address the target customers’ needs.

2. Frequent and direct review by customers of the project teams success throughout project development.

3. A willingness of the project team to quickly adjust goals and tactics and refocus resources mid-project – usually in response to the mid-project feedback received from customers. Agile is always more focused on delivering customer value versus following a predefined project plan – so if change during a project is required, the team follows that path.

4. Because of shorter development cycles (or Sprints) the company, employees and the customers can all benefit from incremental upgrades and more frequent product releases rather than a less frequent but large-scale upgrade. This has multiple benefits for both the customer and organization. For example:

   • The company can be more responsive to change in technology and/or customer needs.

   • The company can benefit from quicker releases that make their customers happy and hopefully more loyal.

   • The company can benefit from earning ROI on development investment sooner.

   • Employees can quickly benefit from the experience and professional development they gain as they stay current with hardware and software trends.

   • Employees can benefit from networking with both customers, technology specialists and team members they many not otherwise meet.

   • Customers get quick access to competitive, timely solutions.

   • Customers and employees benefit from less steep learning curves that are often reflective of large-scale development releases / upgrades and therefore allow them to keep focusing on their day-to-day responsibilities.

More About Agile

With Agile Project Management, teams are self-empowered which changes a leader’s traditional roles and puts them more in-line with new leadership development trends where a leader’s responsibilities are 65%-80% soft skills. Agile leaders are (as all leaders should be), vocal ambassadors of the corporate direction, vision and values while they coach and mentor talent and make sure their teams have the resources they need. Agile Project Management leaders make sure the project and team expect changing requirements and adapt appropriately. And, Agile leaders must always support the overall Agile Project Management methodology within their hierarchy no matter how flat the organization may be. In short, the Agile leader sets the project goals and then empowers their diverse team / teams to find and build value-add, timely solutions that are in line with the company vision and values.

Within Agile Project Managment it is important everyone keep focused on ‘Keeping It Simple’. If things start getting complicated it is a sign to stop and re-evaluate. Not only is this one of the 12 principles of Agile (see below), it is the only way to create a sustainable path where teams go from idea to research to launch quickly. This includes documentation; Agile methodology takes less of a concern about detailed documentation than Traditional Project Management does and instead puts more emphasis on development and delivery of the agreed-upon goals.

Another important component of Agile is to be sure you hire and work with motivated individuals. And, because it is a highly motivating environment with short project timelines it’s also more important than ever that leaders be sure not to burn-out their high-performers. Project management is always about sustainability – even Agile Project Management is a long-race not a sprint. Also, Agile is not permission to multitask; in fact the methodology suggests try to not work on multiple things at a time.

While there are many pioneers who were instrumental in the early days of Agile Project Management, Jeff Sutherland & Ken Schwaber are two you may want to research to learn more. In addition, there are many methodologies within the Agile umbrella (Scrum and Kanban are most common), but in all cases the focus is to add incremental value throughout the project. For a good overview of Scrum versus Kanban visit this link.

Four Core Values Of Agile Project Management

There are four core values and 12 guiding principles connected with the Agile Project Management methodology. The four core values are:

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

   People first; maintaining a focus on the value added that people provide rather than relying on technology, tools and applications. This also should focus on supporting the team and assisting in collaborative cross-functional work-teams that have little to no hierarchical structure rather than silos.

2. Working software over comprehensive documentation

   I admit I struggle with this one. Agile project management values result over documentation. The idea is to not weigh down the team or team members in paperwork – which is great, however tracking decisions and why decisions were made is important to provide historical relevance.

3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

   As with any good design, keeping your customer – your end user in mind is critical. Agile Project Management maintains a commitment to involving internal or external customers throughout the development process to ensure their needs are addressed and effectively responding by making changes that address the client’s needs.

4. Responding to change over following a plan

   Relevance and efficiency are critical to the Agile Project Management methodology; they are core purpose. This means change has to be accepted over adhering to a predetermined plan. Change is expected and embraced. For example, if your collaboration with your customer identifies a competitive need, it is expected that the plan be adapted to be able to quickly respond and reprioritize resources. This may be one of the largest differences to traditional project management. The beauty of Agile is that because iterations and/or projects are – by their nature small, frequent and with short timelines, adapting to change should much simpler than within a traditional project management cycle otherwise called waterfall project management.

Agile allows for continuous change throughout the life of any given project.

Key Agile Project Management Definitions:

1. Story: What the project leader / team wants to happen.

2. Backlog: Tasks or requirements that customers have identified and which will become solutions.

3. Scrum: The employees who will prioritize the backlog and be the Sprint Team. These cross-functional teams primary goal is to deliver a fully tested solution that is responsive to customer priorities in a short period of time.

4. Sprint Planning. Working with customers / end users where they prioritize the requirements out of the backlog that they believe they can deliver within the project plan timeline (usually 2 – 4 weeks).

5. Sprint / Sprint Development: The actual effort. During this time the Agile Board is used to track progress.

6. Agile Board: Where tasks and progress are tracked. Includes To Do, Development, Test and Release categories.

7. Daily Scrum Meeting: Short meetings (roughly 15-minutes), where everyone shares what everyone is doing, what they are going to do next and identify how they may be able to help out.

8. Demo: At the end of every sprint development is a demo to customers / end users who will give feedback – the feedback cycle makes development fast and effective.

9. Package & Release: Once it has been tested and goes to market.

10. Done Pile: which identified what requirements from the Backlog that have been completed

11. Retrospective: When the team looks at what has been done well and not well for future improvement. To also review the backlog that the customers prioritized and now begin planning on those Sprints.

Conclusion:

Agile Project Management is a value-driven project management strategy that consistently delivers high-priority and high-quality results in short periods of time. A key benefit of Agile is more satisfied customer because there is regular collaboration with target customers throughout the development process.

There is more, but I believe this introduction to Agile Project Management methodology gives you a good grasp of the basics… you have at least enough to get started if you wish. And remember, both Agile and Traditional Project Management have strengths and challenges.

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Bruce is Corporate Trainer and Executive Coach.

As a Corporate Trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership & New Leadership Development, Generational Differences and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

Great Time Management Goes Further Than Stephen R. Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; It Includes Great Email Etiquette

I’m a big fan of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. As a leader of a team I especially relate to #3 ‘Put First Things First,’ and as a corporate trainer and habitual lifelong learner, I strongly relate to #7: ‘Sharpen the Saw’.

As much as I am a fan of Stephen’s work, I also know that Stephens 7 habits are only part of the answer when an individual or team tries to establish great time management habits. What I mean is that great time management has a lot to do with how an individual does their work as much as when they do their work. And for those familiar with Stephen Covey’s #5 habit of ‘Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood’, what i’m talking about goes even further. Let me explain.

More Than When… Focus On How

After I built and began facilitating my Effective Email Etiquette Training Workshop, I spent a year researching and building my Time Management Training Workshop. During the second development period (and reinforced every day since), it became clear to me that great email etiquette is also great time management – and not only for the writer; great email etiquette is also great time management for everyone who receives email.

For example, if I consistently do three simple things when I write an email message, I can almost guarantee my reader will:

1. Want to read my email – and therefore prioritize my work

2. Quickly and clearly understand what i’m saying or asking for

3. Answer all of my questions and/or do what I ask

Think how much time you would save if every one of your email were prioritized by the recipient, read, understood fully and then acted on quickly? And, how much time would you… and your readers save if you didn’t have to follow up two, three or four times to get the answer to the questions you asked in your email?

This Ability Is In Your Control

I often hear people who take time management training say, “I’d like to spend an hour in the morning concentrating on my strategic, important work but the office culture doesn’t support this.” I understand when they say that. For some aspects of time management to be effective, the team or corporate culture has to change. The beauty of writing better email is that you don’t need your corporate culture or your department culture to change - you are in control. The three email tips I share below allow you to immediately improve your writing which allows you to immediately save time, be more productive and experience less stress. Yes, using good email etiquette is in your control.

Three Email Etiquette Best Practices I Recommend

To have a great personal impact, I recommend improving your time management by practicing the following three email etiquette best practices:

1. Bottom line your messages. Say hello and then get to the point. If you want to be pleasant and say what a nice day it is… do it at the end of your email.

2. Use indented bullet points to bring attention to critical data. If you have two questions, say, Hi Bruce, I have two questions:

   • Question 1

   • Question 2

3. Write helpful Subject Lines. One or two-word subject lines like ‘Meeting’ or ‘Meeting Update’ are not great. Use 5 to 7 words. Instead, ‘July 2020 Sales Meeting Agenda Update’ lets the reader know exactly what the message is about and makes the email easily searchable 1 week or 1 year later.

None of these three Email Etiquette best practices will take you extra time to write email, but they will save you amazing amounts of time by helping you get what you need when you need it with little-to-no follow-up.

Give these three email etiquette techniques a try. They are just a few of the over dozen email writing techniques you and your team can learn that will make you more efficient, more productive and less stressed.

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Corporate trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Time Management Training, Email Etiquette Training, Leadership Skills, Communication and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada. Bruce is also an Executive Coach to a few select clients.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success. 

How To Tell Clients You’re Raising Your Prices

It can be scary to tell clients you’re raising your prices. Every fear you can imagine flashes before your eyes - over and over. Are you going to lose your best clients? Are clients going to leave en masse forcing you to lay off employees… or worse (is there worse)? As with most difficult conversations, what actually happens is not even close to as bad as our imaginations, especially if we approach the conversation with thoughtfulness and planning.

For the record there are many ways for you to introduce new pricing. While you can do an across-the-board price increase, you may also:

• Stagger your roll-out by province, country or by industry sector

• Introduce new pricing when a contract anniversary date or annual review happens

• Do a partial roll-out now and a full roll-out next year

However you choose to do it, your best approach is to do it thoughtfully and to prepare. This means getting your Marketing and PR channels working long in advance on messaging and working with your Sales Professionals and Customer Service Representatives to train them on best-practices and key messages (but i’m already getting into point 2 and 3 below). So let’s not waste any more time.

Here are 8 ways you can help you tell your clients you’re raising your pricing:

1. Deliver Quality

   Be sure you deliver competitive, value-add to your clients.

2. Manage Expectations

   Don’t surprise them. They have to plan / budget for price increases just like you do. One way to not surprise them is to make price reviews and adjustments part of their anticipated schedule right from the start of our B2B relationship. Help them expect the possibility 3-6 months in advance if you can.

   Another way to manage expectations is to involve your Marketing & PR departments to release / re-distribute industry related articles to the ‘public’ and or to your clients through association newsletters. Other options you could use to regularly put out information to the public… and therefore your clients include:

   1. Twitter

   2. LinekedIn

   3. Your Website / Blog

   4. Your Monthly Client Newsletter

   5. Industry Magazine Articles

3.  Prepare Your Team / Involve Your Team

   Involve your team in planning and the messaging; after all it will likely be them that will be using it. Getting input from everyone on the team can make sure you don't overlook a key message and can help fine-tune the message they will have to use… in their own voice… based on their position (Sales versus Customer Service for example). Getting your team involved also helps secure buy-in on the approach and helps get everyone aligned and invested in striving for a positive outcome.

4. Be Honest. Be Confident 

   Both you and your clients have to believe your product / service is worth every penny (or nickel I suppose in Canada). When it’s time to share new pricing, have a face-to-face conversation if possible. Don't try to hide the price increase or wait until last minute to let them know. When you connect with them your message should confidently include three points:

   1. We value your business.

   2. You’ll get something out of it (greater value, greater service and/or lower risk). 

   3. As always we give you choice (see point 7).

5. Share What They Will Gain

   Price increases have to be all about them and what they will gain… not about you and what you deliver. Focus on what benefits your clients will receive from your services - such as additional service or support, extra resources, increased availability, shorter turnaround. Along with new features, share services you’ve always delivered but they’ve never needed or use… because now might be the time for them. If you are introducing new services or features, explain how they will benefit them. Remember, faster service, reduced risk and greater security are important clients benefits.
   
   Make sure they understand why your pricing is going up and why your product / service is worth more.

6. Remind Them How You Do & Have Added Value

   Remind them about how you / your organization have helped them in the past. This doesn’t have to be extensive – just a high-level overview of big things like how you’ve saved them money, reduced their risk, helped find new clients or enter new markets.

7. Offer Choice

   People love choice – it empowers us and helps us feel in control.

   Raising your prices may help your clients justify moving to a bigger even more expensive package, or it may give them the opportunity to stop paying for a service they no longer use – like out of date reports.

   When going in with a price increase consider presenting new solutions and/or new tiers (higher and lower), they could choose. This reinforces the approach where you and they focus on value rather than price.

8. Don’t apologize

   From time to time clients should expect a price increase. Every successful business gets better year-over-year, so your offer should be getting better, constantly adapting and delivering more of what your clients need. As long as you are proving value you should feel confident. In the same vein, never blame inflation; that is your business cost, not theirs. Sure it will be part of the increase, but if you are only raising price because of inflation you are missing opportunities… and perhaps not improving your business.

One last thing; you may not want to raise your prices to everyone at once. For example, you may want to raise your prices with new client and give your existing clients time to transition to the new rates. This could have some helpful ‘image’ and ‘message delivery’ benefits as you explain to existing clients that they have had a grace period… because you value their relationship so much. And, there is a side benefit to you as this approach allows you to ‘test’ your new pricing before a full roll-out.

Conclusion

If you have been a great supplier and delivered top quality products / services… and have built a relationship where you’ve listened to their needs, you are an asset to you clients and they’ll want to keep you. Also, clients are risk averse and moving is not so easy, especially for large clients / large businesses.

Make sure you are offering great value long before your price increase and then make a plan. If you are positioned well in the market you may lose one or two clients, but if they are that price sensitive, it might be best that they are gone and free up your time for even better, more profitable clients.

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Corporate trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Leadership, Communication and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success. 

3 Simple Ways You Can Make Your Email Writing Magnificent

There are many best practices blogs and magazine articles about email etiquette; I know because I’ve written many of them.

Lately I’ve been thinking, “What are the simplest things I can recommend that will help others make their email writing as effective as possible?” After a bit of thought I came up with the following 3 simple ways to make email writing magnificent.

1. Write A Really Good Email Subject Line.

Looking into the email I’ve recently received I see far too many bad ones like:

• Tomorrow

• Conflict Management

• Training

• One Other Thing

• Requesting Information

I don’t mind sharing these bad email subject lines with you because they are so vague there is no risk of a privacy breech. And that is really the point.

A good subject line is the window into our email. It should manage your readers expectations about what your reader will encounter as well as motivate them to want to open, read and respond to it (which is usually your ultimate goal).

As a general rule, a magnificent email subject line will almost always have somewhere between 5 and 7 words,

2. Say Hello, Good Morning, Good Afternoon… or something like this.

A short, pleasant, professional greeting is one of the easiest ways to take the unintended and all too common pushy, bossy, negative tone that lives within all of our email.

It’s amazing the good things that will happen with your relationship when your reader sees a friendly:

• Hi Bruce

• Good Afternoon

• Good Morning Mr. Mayhew

When people feel you are being friendly and respectful they will be more open to helping get you what you want.

3. Get To The Point

Bottom lining your message is critical to being a good communicator and getting your email read and acted on quickly because it helps you manage their expectations.

Your reader will appreciate when your first sentence (after your greeting), informs them exactly what you what, what you need or what you have for them.

If you have background information put it after your important information and/or action item. Even better, label your background information with a heading called… Background. This creates a physical separation between critical information and background information and will show you reader your important info is only a few lines long… and it is the background info (that they can read later), that makes the message look long.

Conclusion:

There are 2 really good reasons why making your email magnificent is good for you and your organization:

1. Professionalism: Great email etiquette demonstrates you are a professional by showing you pay attention, are a great communicator and know how to manage your - and other people’s expectations. This is important for your professional brand and the brand of your team / organization.

2. Efficiency: Email that get to the point and don’t negatively trigger your reader save you (and your reader) time because they are read quickly and understood easily. The bonus is you save even more time by not having to follow-up.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article about email writing and how you can use it differently in order to get the information you want when you want it. Now, go be magnificent.

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Corporate trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Leadership, Communication and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

How Is Your Tribe Influencing Your Behaviour?

You and I have the natural tendency to adopt the 'culture' of the 'space'... the 'tribe' around us and our workspaces are an important tribe whose culture we often bring home and into our social relationships.

For example:

• If we are in an aggressive, team-competitive, cynical, win-lose workspace, we will have a tendency to be / become abrupt, aggressive and competitive at home and with our social network.

• If our workspace promotes listening, respect, creativity, win-win and exceptional quality... and we work in an environment where our team supports each member while being ambassadors to the company vision and values... we will have a tendency to bring that home and within our social network.

I encourage you to not let these quiet, empathetic behaviours be over-run by more aggressive (and easy to dominate) behaviours that in the long-run hurt our personal and professional success. Leaders win… you and I win when we do two things:

1. Demonstrate the behaviours we want as well as draw attention

2. Reward the behaviours we want; behaviours like kindness, working together and shared respect.

Empathy is a soft-skill we all have and empathy is a healthy part of a healthy tribe. But like anything, empathy becomes healthy and strong when we feed it / nurture it and weaker when we ignore it. And the beauty is empathy at work is a low-to-no cost motivator that improves productivity, creativity and team morale while also fuels collaboration and improves customer satisfaction. What’s not to love?

The more you and I are aware of the 'culture' of our tribe... all of the tribes we belong to... the more we can play a deliberate part of shaping and nurturing our own behaviour at work, at home and within our social network as well as shaping the culture of all of the tribes be belong to.

Choose kindness, respect and empathy as well as quality, value and competitiveness.

#Leadership #leadershipcoach #Empathy #Success

Thank you for taking the time to read this article about empathy and how it impacts the tribes we are part of.

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Corporate trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Leadership, Communication and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

Motivated Reasoning: Why We Believe What We Believe.

Our wishes, hopes, fears and motivations make us
more likely to accept something as true if it supports what we want to believe.

What you and I believe has a lot to do with what you and I want to believe. And no surprise… what we want to believe has a big impact on the decisions we make at home and at work.

Research shows you and I trust facts - even wild unbelievable facts - when those facts support what we already believe or what we want to believe (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1992); the source of the facts has little influence over our trust. For example, if you enjoy coffee you will likely place low legitimacy on studies that say caffeine is harmful, meanwhile you may enthusiastically accept, reference and even share studies that suggest caffeine is beneficial. This is a perfect example how our thoughts create our reality.

The challenge is that you and I often seem to have no idea our subconscious is working overtime to support its own agenda. This cognitive prejudice is called motivated reasoning. As stated by Dr. Peter Ditto, PhD, a social psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, who studies how motivation, emotion and intuition influence judgment, "People are capable of being thoughtful and rational, but our wishes, hopes, fears and motivations often tip the scales to make us more likely to accept something as true if it supports what we want to believe."

And, if our subconscious wasn’t enough of a challenge when it comes to motivated reasoning, the algorithms connected to our social media accounts are designed to push information our way based on what we’ve previously looked at, read and liked. These algorithms narrow our focus even further and shield us from new and interesting points-of-view while creating an echo chamber of the ideas and beliefs we already have.

Here is an at-home example: Imagine it is the weekend. You and I are standing outside side by side as it begins to rain. With each of us looking at the same weather report on our smartphones:

• You believe it will rain enough so that you don’t have to water the garden and instead can go inside an relax with a favourite book - guilt free.

• I believe it will not rain enough because I want to see first-hand how well the new in-ground watering system works that I proudly installed the week earlier .

Considering Motivate Reasoning When Influencing Others

When you and I think about influencing staff, customers or even the leaders we report into, their current beliefs are important to consider because those beliefs will have a great impact on how we should approach the discussion. Because of motivated reasoning it almost always takes more information to make others believe something they don't want to believe or that goes against their current beliefs. Therefore, how much time and work it will take for you and I to succeed will depend on how hard their conscious and subconscious are working to protect their existing beliefs.

And, if motivated reasoning isn’t enough, everybody’s behaviours and decisions are also being impacted by confirmation biases – which for some may sound like a perfect storm and enough to make us want to stay locked in our offices all day.

NOTE: Confirmation bias is slightly different from motivated reasoning. Confirmation bias is when people notice information that agrees with their existing needs and beliefs and points of view while decidedly ignoring (without concern for validity), information, opinions and studies that are contradictory. And again, motivated reasoning is our tendency to easily and wantingly accept information, opinions or studies that agree with our needs, beliefs and values.

Helping People Move Forward

If we want to change a persons strongly held belief we will likely have to overcome motivated reasoning (and confirmation bias). To do this there are two things we will have to do to shift how our thoughts create our reality:

1. Earn Their Trust… Listen To Them
   One of the best ways you can build trust is to make them feel important; one of the best ways to make people feel important is to listen to them.
   Do your best to avoid debating or arguing with them. Instead, learn what is important to them and perhaps more importantly… why it is important to them. Do this by asking open ended questions like, “Tell me more,” and “How does that make you feel?” Listen carefully. You can’t help them change if you don’t understand where they are coming from and why they are there. When they trust you and feel they are an important, respected part of a team they will begin to be ready to begin listening to your beliefs and be open to considering a different point of view.

2. Overcome Their Social Bonds… Their Tribe
   If a person has strongly held beliefs it usually means they have a social group (a tribe), of family, friends and/or coworkers who share and reinforce their beliefs; a group of people that make them feel valued and ‘at home’. If you and I are going to ask them to change, a good part of their resistance will be loyalty to their social group and their feelings of security within that group. For you and I to succeed it will be important to ensure they feel there is another social group to join… and hopefully they will see this new social group as highly desirable and important to their success.

Thank you for reading my article about motivated reasoning and how our wishes, hopes, fears and motivations impact what we do and do not want to believe.

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Corporate trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) specialize in customized Leadership, Communication and other soft skills training solutions in Toronto and across Canada.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

When In Conflict, Be A Good Listener: A Step-by-Step Approach

Are you a good listener in a conflict situation or do you become a boxer? Sorry - I couldn’t resist the fun play of words and the image.

Being a good listener when in conflict is one of the key elements of having win-win conversations. Thankfully, there are things you can do to be a good listener and develop a winning communication style.

Listener or Boxer? Which are you?

One of the most productive things you can do is help the other person trust your intentions - that you are there to understand their thoughts, feelings and needs. Another thing a good listener does is stay away from judging anyone, laying blame or letting your triggers (strong emotions), get the best of you.

Once you have their trust, gathering facts about what happened and why will be much more fruitful. But, this is still not as easy as it sounds. To help you to focus on what your speaker is saying and have productive conversations, I recommend the following step-by-step process:

1. Have a plan. Have an idea what success may look like for you and the other person (realizing you both see the world in very different ways.

2. Pause. Take a moment to reflect and confirm this is the right thing to do.

3. Turn off your smartphone / computer.

4. Breathe calmly. It’s easy for us to stop breathing during a difficult conversation.

5. Notice what is going on for you - and for them. Also notice your surroundings and distractions that may negatively impact the conversation.

6. Show interest. “I have something important I’d like to share and I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts.”

7. Don’t interrupt them when they are speaking:

   • If you have ideas and/or questions… make a note of them.

8. Stay focused on what they are saying:

   • Don’t judge or assume

   • Manage your Triggers

   • Don’t think about what you will say

9. Respond to what they are doing, saying, feeling, needing and believing… but never React.

10. Validate what you think they said / feel / need / believe: “What I’m hearing you say is you feel members of the team interpret our corporate values inconsistently.”

11. Give them space / encouragement to correct what you said in step #10 by pausing and letting them respond.

12. Check in to see if there is more: “This is helpful. Are there other challenges that are impacting communication, our corporate values or quality?”

13. If they have more information or challenges to share, go back to step #7 to encourage them.

14. Thank the other person or people for their contribution

This step-by-step process has many benefits to help you be a great listener. The most obvious is that encourages the other person do most of the talking which helps you build trust and understanding; people will trust you less if you do most of the talking. Having the other person do most of the talking is also beneficial because it may be the first time they’ve spoken aloud about the situation. Speaking aloud may help them gain more understanding and take some responsibility. They may even begin resolving the conflict themselves.

Conclusion:

Becoming a good listener isn’t easy. It doesn’t mean sitting quietly until the other person stops talking, and being a good listener also doesn’t mean agreeing with what they are saying. In fact I would warn you against agreeing to much because later in the day they may subconsciously apply your agreement to the whole conversation. Recap: Understanding is good, agreeing is not.

One last thing; be careful if you find yourself giving advice, sharing your opinion or making suggestions. If you do (or even want to), it is a sign you are not listening.

BONUS: What Are Triggers?

A trigger is any positive or negative event that evokes a deep emotional response. One of the greatest challenges when participating in a difficult conversation is to manage your triggers and try to predict (and avoid), the triggers of the other peoples involved. When negatively triggered we may feel:

• Overwhelmed

• Angry

• Frustrated

• Disappointed

• Embarrassed

BONUS: Effective Open Ended Questions

• “Can you tell me more about that?”

• “What happened next?”

• “How did you feel?”

• “That’s interesting, can you help me better understand by explaining that further?”

• “What is it like to do that?”

• “Please… tell me more” (not a question… but effective.

• “How can we measure that?”

• “What does that mean?”

• “What are your expectations?”

• “How does that process work when… [there are two versus three people]?”

• “What procedures did you use to determine the customers needs?

Thank you for reading my article about why listening is important and how to listen well.

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Corporate trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) delivers customized Difficult Conversation training in Toronto and across Canada. We specialize in Leadership, Communication and other soft skills training solutions.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.

Why Listening Is Important… And How To Listen Well:

It takes effort and energy to listen well and pay attention to other people. Our minds naturally begin to interpret what other people are saying and apply it to our own experiences and knowledge. That ‘association’ is one of the ways you and I form memories and gain understanding. But we have to remember that a little goes a long way and that letting our mind play this association game is not always appropriate… especially if our existing memories hijack our attention.

When we try to listen to someone you and I often fall into one of two traps:

• As above, I begin associate your experience to a similar experience I’ve had, and so my mind interrupts your story and hijacks my attention.

• I’ve heard your experience before and believe I know what you are going to say or what you need. Because of this I interrupt you and stop you from telling your story. This is especially true if we are in any type of customer service type industry where we try to skip directly to the solution.

Of course both of these examples are bad. When we interrupt someone we almost always do more harm than good. If we don’t listen and our goal becomes to share our story or to prove how much experience we have, the other person may no longer trust us. This lack of trust could have a very serious negative impact. Instead, we have to do our best to set aside our own needs and our own experiences… and show that we are both listening and respecting them.

Here are some guidelines to follow when trying to learn to listen better:

1. Everyone you meet will know something you don’t know, consider this an exciting opportunity. Be patient and be curious.

2. Listen to understand… not to respond. Set your own ideas and experiences aside. If you are listening, remember you are trying to learn and understand. If you want to keep track of ideas you have or questions you want to ask, keep a pad of paper with you (not an iPad that may ding or light up from an incoming message), and write down 2 words that will remind you what you wanted to say after they are finished talking.

3. Truly care for the other person and what they are thinking, what they did and/or how they felt. Use into your empathy; imagine what it was like to be them… and be curious about that experience, but don’t get lost in your own mind.

4. To be a respectful listener and dig deeper by asking open ended questions. This means start your questions with words like ‘How’, ‘What’, ‘Where’, ‘Why’ or ‘How’. For example, “How did you feel?” and “What did you do next?” Do not use questions like “Were you happy?” and “Did you go?”

5. Listen with your eyes, ears, needs and feelings. Listen for what they are saying… and what they are not saying.

6. Similar to #2, if you have experienced something similar as what they are describing, put your experience aside. For now, you are trying to help them feel confident that you understand their experience.  Far too many times we try to compare our experiences with theirs.

If you listen to them they will be more likely to listen to you. And, as I suggested above, beyond learning, listening is one of the greatest ways that other people will trust that you:

• Care about them and their experiences

• Understand them and their experiences

When people trust you they will be more likely to:

• Be patient with you

• Compromise – now or sometime later

• Help you – now or sometime later

Conclusion:

When you are with other people talk as little as possible. Remember, if we are speaking we are not listening or learning.

These lessons are doubly important if you are in the position of having difficult conversations. During those times, letting the other person feel that they have been heard and understand will go a long way to helping you resolve the situation in a respectful, thoughtful, collaborative way.

Thank you for reading my article about why listening is important and how to listen well.

Bruce

About Bruce and Bruce Mayhew Consulting.

Corporate trainer Bruce Mayhew (of BMC) delivers customized Email Etiquette training in Toronto and across Canada. We specialize in Leadership, Communication and other soft skills training solutions.

BMC helps your greatest assets think productive and be productive.

Bruce is an experienced motivational speaker in Toronto and has inspired audiences across Canada and within the USA and the UK. Bruce works hard to always make sure your training event, conference, retreat, or annual general meeting is a success.