Thanks for checking in!

It's been some time since posting to this blog, it's time to start afresh!

Some of you know I was asked by the Governor to put my consulting practice on hold and help reorganize Florida's Office of Early Learning as it's Agency Director.  I promised a year and ended up spending 16 months in Tallahassee; while a great experience (I had 110 full-time state employees, 31 locally established Early Learning Coalition Boards across the state and a 1.3 Billion Dollar budget impacting over 250,000 children under the age of 5 in over 11,600 Florida settings), it was time to get home and back to my consulting, training and development practice.

Now that I'm back and we're about to begin anew, it's time to restart the blogging process.  So, beginning with the January 2014 "e-mel", I'll post new monthly messages, and even re-post some of my previously written articles and newsletters.

After 25 years of consulting, training and development, and as we head into 2014, I have come to see the wisdom in a simple three word mantra:

CHANGE OR DIE ...

The sentiment may seem harsh, but is indeed becoming a reality for today’s leaders.  During turbulent times, leaders are faced with tumultuous budget and productivity concerns.  Your HR and admin staff are feeling battered from reduction in workforce discussions.  What’s often left to chance, as leaders are stretched focusing on the fires of the day, is addressing those employees left to produce positive results  for your organization.  All too often it’s our most valuable resource, our remaining employees, that are not addressed.

One uninformed executive recently shared, “Heck they’re happy just to have their jobs!  I don’t need to do anything special for them.”  Really?!  Have I missed the reports of first quarter spikes in productivity, performance, and profitability in businesses across our nation?  It’s natural when employees find themselves in seemingly intolerable situations and feeling overwhelmed by tension, anxiety, and a sense of powerlessness to retreat, shutdown, and go into a self-preservation mode.  We create the exact opposite culture than we need to weather the economic storm and emerge victorious.  By not addressing employee morale, we engender a survival and victim mentality.

Over the past several months, we’ve been contacted by several leading organizations and had the opportunity to partner with them as they’ve realized now is a critical and pivotal time to capitalize on their most important resource, their people.  Although each solution has been tailored to the individual needs of client organizations, some of the strategies we’ve employed include:

• Culture Reconstruction: Building a Culture Where People Thrive.
• Positioning for the Future: Leading in Uncertain Times With Shifting Expectations
• Diversity: Differences seem to be magnified during times of Crisis. Tailored to the unique needs of your organization, we explore cultural, race, gender, and generational issues that can rob an organization of productivity.
• Denial – Not a River in Egypt: Reality discussions, facing facts, resolving roadblock issues, developing strategies, action commitments, and holding self and others accountable is no longer a luxury in today’s tough business climate.
• Change or Die: Success principles to Live By.
• "2020" Habits and Skill Development:  20/20 speaks to great vision ... but the year 2020 is closing in on us as well.  It’s not too early to identify and begin to develop, in earnest, the attitudes and skill sets that will be prerequisites to success in the future. You choose, be proactive and develop core competencies now; or, step into the reactive, victim role, forever being frustrated and playing catch-up.
• Character and Ethics: More than ever this is the desire and desperate demand of your customers (constituents), co-workers, and the community you function within.
• New Ways of Thinking for a Change: What type of thinking is most manifested in your organization?  Is it what will maintain your position and move you to the next level of excellence?  Are you firing on all cylinders when it comes to thinking – big picture thinking, creative thinking, realistic thinking, possibility thinking, and shared thinking?

Maybe you're looking for a topic that's not listed, that's not a problem.  Since 1991 we've been designing programs, events, and solutions around our customers concerns and needs ... I know we can do something special for you too!

From acting as a short-term organization morale officer, to offering action-oriented development sessions for employees, to one-on-one coaching, to offering follow-up support tools our organization is available to ensure your organization is maximizing your most valuable asset -- your talent pool.  Be it addressing  employee productivity or just providing blog essays for you to pass along, we’d be happy to discuss a tailored solution for the challenges you’re facing in today’s challenging climate.

Regards,

Mel Jurado

askdrmel@aol.com

(813) 985-4161

Champions of Change

BECOMING CHAMPIONS OF CHANGE

Change is all around what are you doing to be a victor not a victim? Enjoy ...

Change Management Issues

A recent study documented the three most important issues/responsibilities facing today’s managers as: human resources; accountability and ethical behavior; and, leadership. Let’s consider each of the top three: (1) Human Resources: Is your workforce skilled? Are they motivated? How do you know? When’s the last time you conducted a thorough morale survey or focus group with your internal customers? (2) Accountability and ethical behavior: Are you believable? Do those who work for you and purchase from you view you as fair and ethical? How do you know? (3) Leadership: Are you a visionary? Are you one others are willing to follow? What do you have in place to avoid the herd mentality in your organization? How do you bring you value and ethics systems to life in your organization?

Personal Application:

What do you need to change about how you’re managing change in your organization?

It’s Getting Hot in Here!

Smart thinking says the best time to start making changes and to try something different in your organization is when you’re on top rather than waiting until you’re in trouble and then attempting to claw your way back up. Remember the old frog syndrome: If you throw a frog in a pot of boiling water, he jumps out. But, if you put a frog in a pot of cold water and heat it slowly, he’ll sit there and boil to death. You don’t want to get boiled…do you?

Personal Application:

What’s one (just one) change you could make today that would positively impact the level of value you create for those you serve? Remember, it’s not about change for change sake, it’s about creating greater value for those we serve. What’s your first step?

Chains of Change

Change – it’s become a corporate and national mantra. Change, change, change.. the dictates fly so fast and furious that the concept of change has become overused and many see it as trite and meaningless. Others have said change is nothing more than doing it faster or cheaper. But at its core, change is about improvement – about taking a process, a project, an organization and affecting positive, meaningful improvements.

It requires a dedicated effort to assess the as is, strategically acknowledge improvement opportunities, and to take action to impact meaningful change. Critical to any change process is follow up systems to ensure change is actually achieving the desired impact.

Personal Application:

What do you desire to change in your organization? What’s the ‘as is’ of the situation you desire to change? What action will you commit to taking to improve it? How will you know it’s better.

Secrets to Success in Changing Times

“I attribute my success to this:

I never gave or took an excuse.”
 --Florence Nightingale

“The essence of real leadership is to allow your people to see your need and desire for learning. Your actions speak more than your words. Today’s leaders must be students of change first, before they become teachers of change to others.”
--Jack Kahl, 
Manco, Inc

“An executive cannot gradually dismiss details. Business is made up of details and I notice that the chief executive who dismisses them is quite likely to dismiss his business. Success is the sum of detail. It might perhaps be pleasing to imagine oneself beyond detail and engaged only in great things, but as I have often observed, if one attends only to great things and lets the little things pass the great things become little; that is the business shrinks.” 

--Harvey Firestone

P.O.W.E.R. Training or P.O.T.T.Y. Training

Recently, a client asked me to review some learning and materials we delivered for his sales team over the past several years. I really enjoy that kind of work because it tells me the client saw and still sees value in the original programs and wants to keep the content fresh and full of power.

We tweaked the content, added enough new information to make sure the people who first heard the material didn't feel like they had heard everything already and most importantly, I integrated content from three of the resources they have been reviewing over the past year!

Which leads me to a great couple of questions to ask you ...

1. After you dedicate time and resources to training, what do you do to reinforce the messages you worked so hard to implant?
2. Do you ever come back and review past material?
3. Do you look for new material that adds to and strengthens the previous information?
4. Is your training program reinforcing your mission, vision and strategic goals? Is it focused on moving the team forward over time or do you look for the themes that are currently "hot"?

We call reinforced learning "P.O.W.E.R." Training:

Programs Overcome Weaknesses Especially when Reinforced

Sadly, we run into organizations that kick off each year with some new slogan or plan, jumping from one good idea to another and the value they intended is lost over time because each old idea is replaced with new idea well before the last lessons are internalized and take hold.

We call buzzword or new idea training "P.O.T.T.Y." Training:

Program Or Theme This Year

I hope your training focus is "P.O.W.E.R." not "P.O.T.T.Y." training! It's powerful if it fits your mission and goals and moves you closer to your vision. If not be careful!

Anyway, after conducting the training refresher event, I reworked an older e-mel creating this new (and hopefully fun) one-page motivational piece reinforcing as much of the program key ideas as I could ... I'd like to share that with you now!

THE ABC’s FOR 2014 ...

BACK TO THE BASICS

Success: As Easy As A, B, C…

Action. The days of ready aim, aim, aim, aim are over! You have to be willing to fire!
Belief. A firm belief and commitment to your vision & mission is a mandate.
Communication. The single factor that, when it’s weak or missing, can kill relationships and squash results.
Dedication. Beyond lip service, are you willing to make the necessary sacrifices to achieve your personal & professional mission in 2009?
Excellence. Have you defined what it looks like in each of the goal areas (Key Result Areas) that are important to you?
Focus. Where are you headed? Is it clear to you and others?
Grateful. Have you cultivated this most important habit & spirit?
Humor. Laugh, relax, and lighten up. It’s fine to take your work seriously, but develop the ability to take yourself lightly!
Integrity. How you go about achieving results is as important as what you achieve.
Joy. Are you happy in your pursuits?
Knowledge. How will you go about building your knowledge base this year?
Loyalty. Are you loyal? What are you doing to nurture it in others?
Mission. Why do you exist? Why does your business exist? Are your everyday actions a testimony to these missions?
Network. How are your expanding personal & professional contacts?
Optimism. Have you cultivated the ability to see the positive in all situations and stay focused on achieving the mission/task at hand?

Productivity. How are you measuring the progress toward your goals?
Quality. What does it mean to you?
Relationships. We get results with and through people. Would the people who know you best say you’re “R” is a success?
Smile. It changes your physiology, for the good; and makes it more inviting for others to approach you.
T ime. We all have all there is, yet all complain about not having enough. Determine this year to invest your time in those activities that will allow you to accomplish your personal and professional mission.

Understand. Who or what do you need to gain better understanding of?
V ision. What’s the future you want to create for yourself by 2020? 2030?
Wisdom. Defined it’s ‘intelligence drawing on experience and governed by prudence.’ Are you exhibiting it?
Xtra. What’s the little ‘eXtra’ you want to commit to do for self/ others this year?
You. Are you really committed? Do you go to work daily for You Incorporated?
Zeal. Do you exhibit a persistent fervent devotion to your cause?

So, are you employing this entire alphabet in your work & life? Which of the ABC’s could most benefit you? Over the next thirty days, which of your ABC’s will you be minding?

Well, there you have it, I'll post a new e-Mel the first of  January and will look forward to reading  your thoughts!