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"The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That's why a little hyperbole never hurts."
~ Donald Trump
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"It is important that you recognize your progress and take pride in your accomplishments. Share your achievements with others. Brag a little. The recognition and support of those around you is nurturing."
~ Rosemarie Rossetti
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"There is a difference between conceit and confidence. Conceit is bragging about yourself. Confidence means you believe you can get the job done."
~ Johnny Unitas
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"If the problem can be solved then why worry? If the problem cannot be solved, worrying will do you no good."
~ Shantideva
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"Worry is a special form of fear. To create worry, humans elongate fear with anticipation and memory, expand it in imagination, and fuel it with emotion. Worry is what humans do with simple fear once it reaches the cerebral cortex. They make it complex."
~ Edward Hallowell
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"Worry gives a small thing a big shadow."
~ Swedish proverb
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"Just imagine how happy you'd be if you lost everything you have right now... and then got it all back."
~ Bertrand Russell
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"People don't change their behavior unless it makes a difference for them to do so."
~ Fran Tarkenton
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"Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it."
~ Dwight Eisenhower
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"Would you persuade, speak of interest, not of reason."
~ Benjamin Franklin
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"Whenever Roosevelt expected a visitor, he sat up late the night before, reading up on the subject in which he knew his guest was particularly interested. For Roosevelt knew, as all leaders know, that the royal road to a person's heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most."
~ Dale Carnegie
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Greetings!
Welcome to the September, 2012 edition of Insights. I hope you will find this month's selection of articles interesting and thought-provoking and that you will take from these words at least one thought or idea that you can use to bring about a positive change in some aspect of your personal or professional life. Little by little does the trick. One of Aesop's Fables tells of a crow, half-dead with thirst, who came upon a pitcher which had once been full of water, but when the crow put its beak into the mouth of the pitcher he found that only very little water was left in it and that he could not reach down far enough to get a drink. He tried and he tried, but could not get to the water and was about to give up in despair when a brilliant thought came to him. He grasped a nearby pebble and dropped it into the pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped it into the pitcher. Then he took another and another and another and another and did the same. After continuing with this process for some time, he began to see the water rise up in the pitcher, and at last after dropping in a few more pebbles, he was able to reach the water, quench his thirst and save his life. The crow in this parable was clearly thinking outside the box in solving his life-threatening problem, but the real key to his success was his perseverance. He had a great idea, but for a considerable amount of time he wasn't achieving any success. It was because he persevered in the face of prolonged failure and disappointment that he finally succeeded. Consider the following quote attributed to H. Ross Perot: "Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from the winning touchdown."
How many people do you know who have had a great idea but didn't succeed because they gave up prematurely? It is unfortunate that many people quit just before they are about to have all their effort, patience and commitment pay off. Why is this? Why do many people fail to stick with it? There are many reasons of course, but right up there at the top of the list has to be that people lose confidence in their idea and themselves to achieve their objective. Perhaps you've been there. I know I have. My favorite definition of perseverance is steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. With perseverance, achieving success is just a matter of time; sooner or later success will happen. Perseverance is about winning goals slowly like the crow in Aesop's Fable. It's about patience and persistence and stamina and about never giving up. Most of all, it's about believing in one's self. There is a price to pay for perseverance, but there is also a price to pay for quitting. It's something to think about. If you know of anyone who you think might also be interested in receiving Insights, please forward this issue on. As always, I would be very interested in receiving your feedback. Pat Iannuzzi |
 THE SUBTLE ART OF SELF-PROMOTION
 Most everyone possesses an inherent desire to advance professionally, but clearly not everyone does so to the same degree or at the same rate. People who are in business for themselves usually focus their promotional efforts on approaches such as advertising, networking, blogging and social media to gain a competitive edge in their market. But what if you work as an employee for someone else? What tactics can you employ to distinguish yourself from other employees to gain career advancement within your organization?
Effective self-promotion is about using techniques to emphasize your personal attributes in order to put yourself in the appropriate situations and in the best light to impress others with your capabilities so as to position yourself for career progress and promotions. Traditionally this process has been thought to revolve around the concepts of working hard, doing a good job and demonstrating good character. Achievement is the foundation of success, but it's usually not enough. Truth is, in most companies, you're probably not going to move up just by consistently doing a good job. To get ahead, you also have to promote yourself. You have to get out there within your organization, make your capabilities known, and build a supportive network around yourself.
The Right Way and Wrong Way to Self-promote
Self-promotion can do more harm than good if not executed skillfully and subtly. Self-promotion is about more than simply praising yourself for your accomplishments and expecting to be rewarded for them through career advancement. The reality is that people rarely get promoted simply because of what they have achieved in the past, and focusing primarily on your accomplishments may come across to others simply as self-praise. Self-praise is all about you and talking about how great you are. It can make you sound arrogant and can put people off, and the minute you get a big head is often the same minute that reality smacks you and you realize that you aren't as great as you think you are.
The trick is to leverage your past accomplishment in such a way that they convey the idea that you will repeat your success in the future. People don't get promoted so much for what they have already done, but for what others believe they will do. Therefore, you want to become appreciated less for what you have done and more for what you are perceived to be able to do going forward. Of course a reputation for accomplishment is important for establishing your knowledge and skill in your particular field, but it really only serves the purpose of giving you credibility for your capability to achieve future success. Self-promotion, then, is all about identifying and cultivating opportunities in which you can link your proven abilities to solving problems and overcoming challenges that face your organization.
The reason that self-promotion works and self-praise doesn't is because unlike self-praise which can come across as being transparently self-serving, self-promotion has to do with spreading ideas, concepts, and a greater vision. When you promote ideas, you give people something to cheer for. You give people something to look forward to. They become attracted to your through your ideals.
Self-promotion and Leadership
Self-promotion is key to communicating your leadership abilities. Few people achieve leadership positions based on technical skill alone. Consider Muhammad Ali. He was one of the greatest self-promoters in history. We loved him not just because he truly was "the greatest," but also for his integrity and the boldness of his style and ideas. If you think Ali's success was due only to his boxing ability, compare your feelings about Ali to your feelings about Mike Tyson. Tyson's athletic accomplishments were magnificent as well, but he never communicated a greater vision or connected with us emotionally in a way that made us cheer.
Self-Promotion doesn't come easily to everyone. Many people fear that they'll seem like they're bragging and self-absorbed. According to Peggy Klaus, the author of Brag! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It, "Brag doesn't have to be a distasteful four-letter word. Someone who is effective at self-promotion brags in a way that isn't obvious to others and doesn't come across as too self-serving." Also, keep in mind that self-promotion isn't actually about you. It's about the impact of your work, and that's not something you want to hide. Think about it this way: When you succeed, so does your manager, and so does the company. Sharing your results won't just make you look good, it will put your boss in a favorable light too.
"When the team leader compliments you on the job you did organizing the client meeting," Klaus says, "don't brush it off with an 'Oh, it was really nothing.' Say how much the recognition means to you. Acknowledge the good effort you gave, and add something worthwhile that underscores the importance of the contribution you made. 'I think it's really important that these meetings are a valuable experience for our clients,' you might say, or 'I put a lot of advance work into that new technology panel, so it was really rewarding to see the clients so engaged in the session."
Make your Accomplishments Known to Others Besides Your Boss
Some might think it is enough to gain their supervisor's recognition; after all, he or she is the one with the most impact on a direct report's evaluation, raise, and other work-related rewards. But the savviest strategists understand the importance of self-promoting to higher levels of authority, as well as laterally to other departments and their managers. Your boss's boss might be in a better position than your direct supervisor to give you a promotion or plum assignment. Furthermore, a colleague who shares the same rank with you today may be in a position to advance your career down the road.
Many aspiring leaders, specifically those with much less experience, all too often wait, believing that their manager or another person will persistently promote their advancement potential. This is taking a passive approach to career advancement and is not usually productive. Nobody else within your organization should be relied on to ensure that you are visible to those affecting your future. It's your responsibility. That you're making an effort and doing your best at your current job is really just a given or pre-requisite. You'll miss being recognized and rewarded for your contributions and potential if you feel that your results speak for themselves.
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WORRY LESS - ACHIEVE MORE
 I think it's fair to say that we all spend too much time worrying and that excessive worry can make our lives unnecessarily complicated and stressful. Worry and anxiety do have their place. They help create in us an awareness of potential threats and dangers we may be facing and can motivate us to take necessary actions to protect ourselves from them. These dangers can arise from any type of threat to our physical or emotional well-being, from not doing well on a test to being fired from a job to losing a loved one. In this way, feelings of stress and anxiety are healthy and necessary; without them, we may not act in our own best interest.
Most of the things we tend to worry about, however, never happen, and even if they do happen, worrying about them rarely ever helps. It just robs us of positive thoughts and fills us with fear. Truth is, most fear is nothing more than a figment of our imaginations. It's usually an expression of insecurity based on pointless and unfounded speculation.
Worry is a Waste of Time and Mental Energy
Worry is simply a negative mindset being expressed in a future tense. It is negative imagination. There are always things to be anxious about, but worrying about them is usually not going to help. If something we fear is inevitable, worrying about it will only rob us of time and energy from working to develop tactics and strategies to overcome or work around the expected negative event. If the unfavorable anticipated outcome is not certain to happen, then worrying is not only unwarranted, it also causes us to constrain our creativity and effectiveness in finding ways to prevent the outcome from happening in the first place. Either way, we must take practical steps to deal with the problem and not waste time worrying. The key is to live in the present moment; when we worry we are thinking of the future or past, and this prevents us from dealing with the issues at hand. To reduce worries and anxieties is not to ignore problems. It simply means that we should work toward solutions rather than just thinking of negative outcomes.
Negative Thinking Produces Negative Results
Since our minds are naturally creative, worrying is an extremely dangerous way to project our energy. Because our beliefs dictate our behaviors, a worry can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy (i.e., an expectation coming true simply because we believe in it and as a result, we subconsciously actually make the expectation happen). more about self-fulfilling prophesy
This can be true even if your thoughts are something like "I hope I don't... (lose my job, get cancer, spend the rest of my life alone, etc.)." What you are really projecting is "I'm afraid I might..." So, right away your creative mind goes to work looking for a way to manifest the very result you are fearful of.
Analyze Your Worries and Anxieties
Another approach to dealing with worries is to carefully analyze whether they are actually justified. Ask yourself the following: Why am I worrying about this? Could I be wrong? What's the evidence? Am I trying to control things that I can't possibly control? Am I overestimating the risk the way I usually do? Will this even matter to me next year, next month or next week? On my death bed, will I regret not having worried more about this?
Suppose you are worrying about someone's reaction to what you did at work. It's possible that you are imagining the worst and attributing false motives to the other person. Careful analysis of the situation might at least create an element of doubt in your mind as to the rationale for your worry. On reflection, you may even find that your initial assessment may not have been as justified as you initially thought or that you may, in fact, be totally off base. By analyzing and stepping back from the problem, you may find yourself in a better position to accurately evaluate its significance and ultimately realize that you really don't have a reason to worry at all. Look inside. What is causing you to worry? Be specific. For some situations, this may be readily apparent; other times, you may really have to think about it. Remember, most of the things we tend to worry about never happen.
Keep Things in Perspective
Try writing a list of all the things that you are currently worried about, and then examine how much they really affect your life. Are you worrying about important things in life or merely side issues? If your worries are about significant issues, then give them the importance they deserve. On the other hand, if you don't get your usual parking spot at work, don't let it become the end of the world. If you have to wait in line at the post office a bit longer than you expected, it's not a big deal. Don't be overwhelmed by small things. Always strive to see the bigger picture. Assess the problem to see whether the threat is real, or if you are blowing it out of proportion. If the problem is just a hypothetical situation or a worst-case scenario, decide if it is really likely that your fears will actually come to be.
Get over the "what if syndrome" Stay in the here-and-now instead of agonizing about what might happen. Focus more on your senses and surroundings than on your thoughts. Avoid dwelling on the past. Ruminating about past failures and disappointments tends to evoke and perpetuate a depressed mood.
Take Action
When we worry about things we can become paralyzed by fear. Rather than just worrying, think very carefully about what practical steps you can take to avoid the problem. For example, if you worry about your finances consider how you could reduce your spending, increase your income and consolidate your debt. Then, decide what action, if any, should be taken. Try to figure out what part of the situation is under your control.
If you just worry and feel powerless, the problem will not go away, but will continue to lurk in the back of your mind. By taking action and working towards a resolution you will feel much better. Some problems shouldn't be ignored; they require action. However, for other worries there are no steps that you can take because the worry is mostly imaginary. If you realize there is nothing you can actually do, this may be a very good reason to stop worrying about it.
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YOUR PERSUASIVE EDGE
People often associate the topic of persuasion primarily with the concept of selling, but the importance of effective persuasion skills really pertains to every one of us regardless of our individual vocation. Every day each of us is involved to some degree in influencing the thoughts and actions of others. In fact, the path to success in life lies to a very large extent in gaining the cooperation of others. In this edition of Insights, we continue with our ongoing segment dedicated to the topic of persuasion.
MOTIVATING CHANGE IN OTHERS
 Many of us often find ourselves in a position where we need to motivate change in others. This is especially true in situations in which we are coaching subordinates. Providing developmental feedback is an essential responsibility for anyone who manages a team, department or an entire organization. No one likes hearing how they messed up, but if you are the leader and don't effectively communicate to your subordinates what they are doing wrong, they can't possible change their performance for the better. Of course, developmental feedback must be valid, balanced and behavior-based, but the main characteristic must be that it be accepted and internalized by the people being coached. Otherwise coaching feedback is a waste of time and effort for both the coach and the performer.
The bottom line is that no one can make another person change. The other person has to want to change, and this usually requires some degree of persuasive ability on the part of the person giving the feedback. It's the old "You can lead a horse to water but....." adage. The key is to get the person being coached to agree with and accept the need for the suggested behavioral change. However, a subordinate is unlikely to commit to any significant change in performance behavior if he or she feels it is for your or your organization's benefit alone. As with any persuasive effort, the way to change a person's thinking about an idea is to persuasively communicate how changing is in the person's personal best interest. It really all comes down to the "what's in it for me (WIIFM)" notion.
As a manager seeking to influence your colleagues, it's important not to rely primarily on your authority to motivate behavioral change. This is because basically such an approach rarely works. A subordinate may indicate compliance with your developmental suggestions, but unless he or she really buys-in to what you are sayings, any change in behavior will be superficial or temporary at best. A more likely outcome will be a situation in which the desired behaviors will be exhibited whenever you are watching but will disappear when you aren't. Many times you may not even possess any authority to leverage, such as might be the case if you were trying to get a colleague on your team to work with you more cooperatively. In this kind of a situation, all you really have to work with is your persuasive ability.
Focus on Others' Wants and Needs
People are motivated to act for one of two reasons: to experience pleasure or to avoid pain, and either or both can be linked to their unmet needs. But neither approach really works if it revolves around factors that are forced on them such as giving rewards for doing something you want them to do or administering a consequence for their not doing something. People will only truly and voluntarily change if it is for their reasons. They will not generally change for your reasons. Such attempts at inspiring change in others are called external or extrinsic motivation. They do work, but their impact is usually limited and short-lasting
If you want to motivate someone to truly change or behave differently, you must first understand his or her personal wants and needs and connect the changes you seek directly to those needs. You need to find out what motivates a person internally or intrinsically. Find out what satisfies another person's deep interests or desires. Money can be a nice motivator, but money is only a means to satisfy a deeper desire. What is that deeper desire? Discover it and focus on it and not the money. This will make the connection between behavioral change and need satisfaction much more powerful. When you learn what a person's intrinsic motivators are, you are in a better position to get real, lasting change from your persuasion/motivation efforts. more on personal motivation.
Some things are pretty obvious when it comes to workers' needs and desires. Most every employee wants to be appreciated, have job security and to be paid well. Consistently filling such needs will certainly predispose employees to consider behavioral development initiatives in a more positive light. However, other personal motivators need to be uncovered and leveraged as well. If you want a subordinate to change a work-related behavior, you have got to persuade that person that the suggested change will benefit him or her as much or perhaps, even more than it will benefit the organization. But before you can do it, you must get to know and understand the other person to learn specifically what he or she really wants.
If you are coaching a salesperson who you know wants to become a sales manager, you can connect your desire that the person improve his or her communication skills to the fact that such skills are an essential requirement for promotion to management. If you are working with someone who wants to transfer to another location within the organization, you may be able to get buy-in to leadership development by stressing the high value placed on leadership skills by upper management. If you know a person desires to have greater influence in departmental decisions, you can leverage this desire to persuade the individual to undertake interpersonal skills training. These are just some examples on how to connect what you want for the individual to what he or she wants to get mutually beneficial outcomes.
Ask us a question about Persuasiveness.
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| I hope you have enjoyed what you've read. As always, we value your thoughts and comments. Please feel free to:
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Pat Iannuzzi
Symbiont Performance Group |
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