The Power of Positive Questions

Today’s post comes to you written by J.D. Frailey, FranklinCovey Consultant.  Take a moment to read this post and examine yourself and your team afterwards.  What kinds of questions are you formulating together to drive your business forward?  Enjoy!

“Why can’t I find time to do things before the deadline?”

“Why can’t I stick to an exercise program?”

“Why can’t I get people to communicate with each other?”

 If you’ve ever asked yourself questions like these—and who hasn’t—it was probably in frustration, maybe even with hands thrown up, awash in a feeling of anger or helplessness.    

But here is something to consider: maybe the questions themselves are the problem, specifically the way you’ve worded them.   

You see, the human brain is excellent at answering questions and solving problems, that’s what it does.  So—be really careful as to how you word the questions  you ask yourself, because your brain will do its best to answer those questions, and the answers will either help you solve problems and move forward—or create more problems and hold you back.

Every answer to a question that begin with “Why can’t I—?“ is an OBSTACLE to what you want, a reason why you CAN’T, whether those answers are logical or even true. 

“Why can’t I find time to do things before the deadline?”  Because I’m too busy, because I’m a procrastinator, because I watch too much television, etc., etc.

“Why can’t I stick to an exercise program?”  Because I don’t have time, because I hate to exercise, because I’m lazy, etc., etc.

Why can’t I get people to communicate with each other?”  Because they’re lazy, because they don’t get it, because they want me to do everything for them, etc., etc.

The result?  We are frustrated and we don’t get the results we want.

But what if you worded those same questions such that the answers are solutions rather than obstacles?

“How can I find time to do things before the deadline?”  As taught in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People or the FranklinCovey goal setting process:  Start early, allot a bit of time each day, block out distractions while I work on the project, etc.

“How can I stick to an exercise program?”   As recommended in The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity:  Work out with a partner, plan and schedule my exercise time in advance, set specific goals and record my progress, remind myself of the benefits of good health, etc.

Here is an example.  I once worked with a client, a sales manager, who was frustrated that his team was convinced they could not meet a sales goal imposed by corporate, and therefore, he felt, were not really trying.  After sharing the power of positive questions with him, he called his team together in a conference room.  He titled a flipchart, “Why can’t we reach the sales quota goal?”  He said to his team, “I know you feel strongly that the goal is unrealistic, unreachable, and I need to clearly understand why you feel this way, I need to understand what the obstacles are.  So let’s hear them, and don’t hold back.”

His team mistakenly felt they had convinced him the goal was unreachable, that he had come to them for ammunition so he could push back on corporate, and they really opened up. 

“It’s the economy!”  “Look at what the competition is offering!”  “We have too many other priorities!”  And on and on.

He recorded every obstacle on the flip chart page, and after about five minutes the page was nearly filled.  “Is there anything else?”   When he was sure there were no more obstacles, he tore the page from the flip chart stand and turned to his team.  “Follow me,” he said. 

Confused, they followed him outside and to a far corner of the parking lot.  Without a word, he wadded up the flipchart sheet, got a lighter from his pocket, and held the flame to the paper.  When it had ignited he dropped it to the asphalt and stood with his team watching until it had extinguished itself.

He turned to face his team.  “Now let’s be clear,” he said in a quiet voice.  “We are going to reach the goal, and we are going to do it the right way, period.  I have tremendous confidence in you, and in our ability as a group to get creative and to work hard and to make that number.  We’re going back in that room, and I don’t want to hear one more word about why we can’t.  We are only going to focus on how we can.  And as a group we ARE going to get there.  Come with me.”

They followed him back into the building and into the conference room, obviously down and disheartened.   They watched as he headed a clean flipchart sheet, “How can we reach the sales quota goal?”

“All right,” he said, marker in hand.  “Let’s hear your ideas.  I know it will be a challenge, but how can we get there?”

After a silence that had begun to stretch to an uncomfortable length, one of the sales reps finally spoke up.  “Well, there is one thing I’ve begun doing that has gotten me some really good appointments.  What I do is…” 

“Great idea,” the manager said, and wrote it down.  “What else?”

After a shorter silence, another team member raised her hand and shared an idea regarding benefits comparisons.  The manager wrote this idea down, then turned around to see two more hands raised to share ideas.  After ten minutes the flipchart was nearly filled with over a dozen ideas for increasing sales. 

Any guesses on what ultimately happened?  The team exceeded the “impossible” goal by over five percent. 

If you really want to reach a difficult goal or solve a tough problem, and you find yourself stuck, be sure to ask questions that provide answers, not obstacles, and you greatly increase your odds of success.

J.D. Frailey, FranklinCovey Consultant      

Copyright © 2012 - J.D. Frailey

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We hope that you found today’s post thought provoking about your paradigms as a leader and the culture of your team.  If you would like to visit with us to discuss enabling your culture to achieve new and better results, let’s talk!

Enabling greatness one organization at a time,

John Vakidis

Associate Client Partner | FranklinCovey

214.387.9960 | john.vakidis@franklincovey.com

Let's connect online: LinkedIn & Twitter

Fuel Your Fire

With Spring Break around the corner, I wanted to spend a little time talking about the power of renewal.  Some of you will be taking vacations filled with fun activities.  Some people will be diving into a new book (like Smart Trust or The 3^rd Alternative) and others will simply be finding time to simply relax.

In FranklinCovey’s newest offering, The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity, we learn that renewal has a major effect on worker productivity.  In Choice 5: Fuel Your Fire; Don’t Burn Out we spend time educating participants (based on the latest brain science) about the 5 key energy drivers:

In the program video titled, Energy Crisis, Leigh Stevens, Program Architect, explains the following, “Our quality of life is influenced dramatically by the amount of energy we have.  Energy influences not only what we can accomplish, but how much we enjoy what we do.  Yet, so many of us are worn down and worn out by the urgencies of life that we end up suffering from a personal energy crisis.”

Leigh further explains, “We have two basic sources of energy. The first is our sense of purpose. When we’re doing things that are important and meaningful to us, we’re filled with energy. We give our best and enjoy making the effort. …  The second source of energy is our physical and mental capacity. Even if we’re excited about the purposes in our lives, we might lack the energy in our bodies and our brains to enjoy them or even give them our best effort.”

While vacations are a great part of renewal, they are often few and far between,  Continual renewal is really what helps drive our daily productivity.  If you feel like your life is on autopilot, you probably aren’t really contributing your best self, day in and day out at work or event in your close relationships.

If you want to learn more about increasing productivity in your life, consider joining us for one of our special 5 Choices preview events in your area: Dallas on 4/17/12 or Oklahoma City on 5/09/12. 

For more information about transforming the productivity in your organization, contact me to set up an appointment with your Client Partner and a Consultant from our Global Productivity Practice.  You can request a meeting simply by filling out a request using our Online Appointment Book on this page (top right) or by sending me an email directly.

Wishing you a great week of renewal!

- John Vakidis

Faith, Trust and Analysis in Innovation

It’s the first Friday of March.  My colleague, Mark Murphy brings you a great post about Innovation.  We hope you enjoy it!

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If you are doing something that hasn’t ever been done before, or striving for results that have never been achieved before, you will inevitably encounter plenty of reasons not to proceed.  You will almost certainly, at some point, question your own confidence.  It happens so often that Harvard Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter created Kanter’s Law (http://bigthink.com/ideas/5474):  Everything can look like a failure in the middle.  When you first formulate an idea, excitement peaks.  But the more you study that idea, the more you realize the challenges that lie in front of you.

Innovators must have faith.  Faith in their idea.  Faith in the intuition that was the seed of the idea.  Faith in their ability and capability to see the idea to its fruition.  It’s important to Keep the Faith.  But that faith must not be blind faith.  It needs to be tested. 

Just as innovators must have faith which is not blind faith, it is imperative that innovators have trust that is Smart Trust. Real innovation requires trust in others, but even more importantly, trust in one’s self.  Ronald Reagan said so famously, “trust, but verify”.  Stephen M.R. Covey and Greg Link, in their book “Smart Trust – Creating Prosperity, Energy, and Joy in a Low-trust World”, talk about the importance of “’smart trust’, enabling you to operate with high trust in a low-trust world by minimizing risk and maximizing possibilities.”

Click here to learn more about how trust empowers innovation and creativity

And finally, it’s important, that while you’re keeping the faith and trusting your intuition, you do appropriate due diligence.  The proper analysis of an idea is critical to determining its viability.  Scott Anthony, in his Harvard Business Review blog post of November 17, 2011:  A Few Ideas for Beleaguered Innovators refers to Michael Lewis’s baseball book, Moneyball. It describes how the Oakland Athletics exploited market inefficiencies to compete against baseball teams with more financial resources.  Scott Anthony writes that in the book “there was a discussion between A's general manager Billy Beane and his team of scouts. They were discussing a prospect, a University of Alabama catcher named Jeremy Brown. The scouts didn't like Brown, pointing to his "soft body" and "low energy." Beane's analytical team loved Brown, citing some of his performance statistics. A debate ensued. Beane shut the discussion down with a succinct phrase that summarized his organizational philosophy: "We're not selling jeans here." Brown became the 35th overall selection in the amateur draft.

Beane's point was that he didn't care about a player's physical attributes; he cared about whether the player would perform.  And his philosophy was that statistics provided a better way to identify high performers than a player's physique or mental makeup. In this case, the scouts might have had a point — Brown ended up with a grand total of 11 major league plate appearances (where he did bang out two doubles and a single). Nonetheless, Beane's admonition is a useful reminder that innovation leaders should make sure they are asking the right questions and focusing on the right variables.”

In the end, it all comes down to one question…or three:

• Do you have faith in your idea?
• Do you trust your intuition?
• Did you do your due diligence?

Mark Murphy, FranklinCovey Consultant                

Copyright © 2012 - Mark Murphy _____________________________________________________________

If you are interested in learning more about how FranklinCovey can help impact and increase innovation in your organization, consider setting up an appointment with our online appointment book (top right side of this page.)

Enabling greatness one organization at a time,

John Vakidis

Associate Client Partner | FranklinCovey

214.387.9960 | john.vakidis@franklincovey.com

The Demise of Dysfunctional Selling

Over the last 2 days, I was fortunate to attend one of our public sessions for Helping Clients Succeed.  I was in the room with very seasoned sales professionals, CEOs and sales trainers from around the country.  Everyone was there to learn a new and better way to work with their clients. 

Let’s face it!  Dysfunctional selling is all around us.  Salespeople are trying to sell solutions to help their clients all while trying to make a quota.  Clients are struggling with their businesses and need outside vendors, yet they don’t like “being sold” and withhold valuable information that could help the salesperson help them with their products and services.  Without trust the sale will rarely happen. 

Take the comic above for example.  Do your prospects feel like wallets rather than people?  If so, you will rarely close a deal.

Here is a typical scenario.  After a few short interactions, the client asks for a proposal just to see if the solution is in their budget.  Like a dog fetching a ball, the salesperson gladly chases that opportunity, wastes a lot of time drafting a proposal and drumming up internal support without ever knowing if the client is going to buy or not.  In most cases they don’t.  The sales rep is now back at the beginning of trying to drum up new business and starting this dysfunctional process all over again.  At the same time, the client is also frustrated because they need outside assistance, yet think all salespeople are out to get their money.  The next vendor approaches them and they repeat again, too.

If the above scenario sounds like your sales process, then you might want to take a look at our Sales Performance Solutions.  We work with sales teams with an entirely different approach.  Your sales professionals learn that “Intent counts more than technique” and to “Move off the solution” and to truly focus on the client, rather than trying to make the sale.  After they go through the process, when it is time to offer the client a solution, they provide them with one that “exactly meets their needs.”  These sales have a higher close ratio, are often much bigger and clients are happy to do business with you again and refer you to other clients.

Ready for a change?  If so, use the Online Appointment Book at the top right of this page and let’s set up a 30-minute call to explore your situation.  You can also learn more by ordering a copy of the book, Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play: Transforming the Buyer/Seller Relationship. 

Helping our clients succeed,

John Vakidis

PS - if you are an executive or a sales leader, consider joining us in Dallas on April 5^th for a ½ day session to better understand this process.  Contact me directly to register.  Seats are limited.

Speed of Trust Results

Yesterday, I attended a keynote with over 100 DFW leaders to hear best-selling author, Stephen M.R. Covey deliver his message on Leading at the Speed of Trust.  Stephen started the morning with his story about how he went fly fishing several years ago.  He explained how he couldn’t see the fish in the stream until he put on a pair of polarized sunglasses.  Once he had them on, he could see fish… a lot of fish.  He related this to trust in the simple explanation of our paradigms.  Trust is everywhere.  Until we “put on the glasses to see it”, we might not see it either.  Watch the video below narrated by Stephen for a further explanation.

During yesterday’s keynote, participants got to sample our Speed of Trust Cards that we use when delivering training for clients (see samples below).  These cards provide a detailed description of The 4 Cores of Credibility and the 13 Behaviors of a High Trust Leader.  They set clear definitions for each of the cores and behaviors.  They also define the counterfeits for each behavior so that participants can recognize the difference.

When our clients apply The Speed of Trust Process to their organization and make it a part of their culture, they typically see Spectacular Results!  We have several client testimonials, but one of the most well-known client videos we have is from Frito Lay. 

Take a moment to watch this video now

Frito Lay has trained well over 40,000 employees over the last 5 years with this content and has made our Speed of Trust Process part of the way they do business.  They have used this process not only with employees and leaders, but with their external partners, too. 

Clients are using this process to help in a variety of ways:

·         Increase Employee Engagement

·         Improving Mergers and Acquisitions (pre and post)

·         Enable Change Management

·         and more …

If you are interested in learning more about the Speed of Trust Jobs to Be Done and how this PROCESS might impact your business, I suggest setting up a 30-minute call with your FranklinCovey Client Partner.  Consider using the Meeting Request Calendar on the top right of this page or contact me directly.

For those of you in charge of training, consider joining us for a webinar on n February 23^rd.  We will be discussing more client results like Frito Lay.  CLICK HERE to learn more and register now.

Remember this… “Nothing is as fast as The Speed of Trust.” - Stephen M.R. Covey

Your trusted partner,

John Vakidis

PS - Follow this link to download an executive book summary of The Speed of Trust.

Sales Performance

In November 2011, I wrote a 4 week blog series based on some research from Gallup about the 4 key factors that determine a salesperson’s success:   

1.       Intrinsic motivation

2.       Disciplined work style

3.       Ability to build relationships with customers

4.       Ability to close a sale

While the first 3 aspects are more linked to characteristics of a good sales person, the last one really depends on the PROCESS in which a salesperson works with their prospects and clients.  In retail, managers often push their salespeople to "Close, close, close!" because they know the statistics that when a person leaves without buying, the chance of them coming back can be thwarted by a number of factors, which leads to items remaining in the warehouse.

In more complex B-T-B sales environment, the way you consult your client will have a dramatic effect on not only if they buy, but how much they buy, how fast they buy and if they will ever buy from you again.  Many companies are good at initiating the opportunity.  Their marketing department has done good analysis of determining what companies want/need and the price they are willing to pay for their products or service.  With a well-written email or good phone call, a salesperson might be able to set up a meeting.  From that point, this is where most salespeople FAIL.

In Mahan Khalsa’s book, Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play: Transforming the Buyer/Seller Relationship, he and co-author, Randy Illig explain that when in a more complex sale envirnoment, salespeople need to learn to work with their clients in IN ORDER.  They need to understand their client’s needs (Opportunity Creation) and build them a solution that exactly meets their needs and help them get results (Opportunity Conversion).

The Key to Sustained Superior Sales Performance lies solely on getting a sales force to adopt a proven methodology and hold them accountable to execute the process.  As a sales leader, if you can do this well, you will hit your quota year after year and you’ll have plenty of happy clients that are willing to be referrals.

To learn more, consider requesting a meeting with your FranklinCovey Client Partner using the Online Appointment Book (top right of this page) or even joining us in Dallas on February 22-23 for our regional 2-day public session for Helping Clients Succeed. 

To your sales success,

John Vakidis

Are you on LinkedIn?  If so, connect with me and mention that you read this blog post on "Sales Performance"

Attitude is Everything

It’s the first Friday of February, so today I bring you the second post by my colleague, Mark Murphy.  Last month Mark authored a blog titled, Networking and Trust.  Today, Mark writes about something close to my heart.  The subject is Attitude is Everything.  See if today’s post resonates with you and if it does, feel free to post the URL on Facebook or Twitter.  Who knows, maybe you’ll be able to help someone else with their attitude.  Enjoy!_______________________________________________________________________

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” —Antoine de Saint Exupery

Our attitudes and beliefs drive our behaviors; our behaviors in turn determine results.  For example, some managers could have the belief that people over 50 are incapable of embracing technology; therefore deciding that anything having to do with innovative technology on a project should be the responsibility of younger IT team members.  This could potentially cause problems on the team. There may be older members of the team who are quite tech savvy and some younger team members who aren’t.  We sometimes make assumptions which can be inaccurate and can cause trouble if not clarified. Remember, Steve Jobs was in his 50’s as is Bill Gates.

The See-Do-Get cycle from Dr. Steven Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, illustrates how our attitudes drive behaviors which ultimately determine results.  As an example of how the model works, let’s take a cue from history. 

Imagine that we are all physicians in the 15th century. What was the belief system held regarding illness in the 15th century?  Where did it reside in the body? Answer:  If you were sick, you were thought to have bad blood – a condition that meant that you were probably evil to some degree. If that’s our paradigm, the way we “see” things, what do we “do” to heal patients? We bleed them. What kinds of results do we probably get? Dead people. 

As physicians, we’ve taken the Hippocratic Oath.  We sincerely have a desire to help people.   It’s obvious we’re not getting very good results. We determine that we have to “do” something different.  If our paradigm doesn’t change-- the belief continues to be that illness comes from bad blood--and taking small quantities of blood isn’t working, what should we do?  Take more blood out! Possibly get them more involved in their healing process by letting them put their own leaches on. What are the results? Exactly, even more dead people.

Let’s imagine one of us, we’ll call him Louis Pasteur, comes up with a very heretical idea that it’s possible illness doesn’t necessarily reside in the blood, but actually comes from  tiny particles in the air that we can’t even see that we’re going to call “germs”.  If that becomes our new paradigm, what might we do differently?  Answer: We could separate or quarantine patients so they don’t spread disease.  We could begin to sterilize instruments between patient visits.  We could wash our hands.  If we were to begin to do some of these things, we would eventually get different, and possibly better, results.

Does that mean the paradigm of illness residing in the blood is completely incorrect?  Of course not. There is Leukemia and many viruses that are blood-borne diseases.  Does it mean the belief is completely correct either?  

No – as managers we need to be willing to be flexible and adapt our paradigms to a diverse set of facts.

“I have never learned anything from any man who agreed with me.” —Dudley Field Malone

- Mark Murphy, FranklinCovey Consultant             

Copyright © 2012 - Mark Murphy

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If you are interested in learning more about our 7 Habits Solutions, consider setting up an appointment to meet with Mark and your FranklinCovey Client Partner.  Schedule an appointment today with our online appointment book (top right side of this page.)

Enabling greatness one organization at a time,

John Vakidis

Associate Client Partner | FranklinCovey

214.387.9960 | john.vakidis@franklincovey.com