A Time to Celebrate

 

Well, one year after creating this site, we have had over 13,000 page views.  I’d like to take a moment to thank our readers and some of our guest contributors: Mark Murphy, Haydn Shaw and ToddWangsgard.

Based on the activity by our audience, below are some of the more popular posts from the last 12 months:

• The 5 Stages of Performance Improvement
• FranklinCovey’s Next Best Seller - 4DX
• Networking and Trust
• Attitude is Everything

 Also, make sure to check out the Blog Archive on the right side of the page.  There were a few months that were dedicated to a particular subject like the month of Nov 2011: Sales Effectiveness 101, 102, 103 & 104 and June 2012: The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity. 

 Over the last 12 months, we have posted every Friday without missing a week.  Over the next 12 months, expect to see a different format.  Posts will be a mix of articles with a variety of sources for our content and when we post will be a less frequent, but always relevant.  To make sure you don’t miss a post, sign up to become a follower or subscribe via email.

 If you see an article related to Leadership, Personal Effectiveness, or anything you think is relevant to FranklinCovey, and you would like us to elaborate on, send me an email for consideration.

 Lastly, I want to connect with YOU!  Connect with me on LinkedIn.  If you would like to learn more about partnering with FranklinCovey, let’s set up a 15-minute introductory call.  Fill out a request on our online appointment book on the right side of this page.

Once again, thanks for following our regional blog. 

 Sincerely,

John Vakidis

Buy 10 - Get 1 FREE

At FranklinCovey, we have a variety of principle-based, training solutions that provide participants the right “Mind-Set, Skill-Set and Tool-Set” to make necessary changes in their behavior to achieve their desired results.

We have over 45 programs, that can help leaders and individual contributors thrive even in today’s challenging and unpredictable times.  Click here to download a current catalog to learn more about these solutions below.

·         Leadership Solutions

·         The 7 Habits Solutions

·         Business Execution Solutions

·         Business Communication Solutions

·         Project Management Solutions

·         Diversity Solutions

·         Sales Performance Solutions

·         Customer Loyalty

·         Online Learning Solutions

 In addition to public training programs and private onsite team engagements, one of our most popular ways to partner with organizations is through Licensed Certification.  We certify individuals (Leaders, Trainers and HR Managers, etc.) to take our content and tailor it for their workforce.  Not only is this an extremely effective way to bring our content in house, it is our most affordable option for training the masses!

 

 

Once a year, FranklinCovey holds a promotion specifically for our 100,000+ facilitator clients and it only runs in August.  As of today, we have 1 week remaining in our 15^th Annual Buy 10 Get 1 Free Offer (offer expires 8/31/12).

 

Offer details:

·         Materials must be ordered at one time to qualify.

·         This offer applies only to client-facilitator orders and does not apply to programs facilitated by FranklinCovey delivery consultants.

·         To qualify for the bonus offer, a minimum purchase price of $50 applies to each participant guidebook, participant kit, or tool. If the price is less, contact your client-service coordinator to determine the minimum purchase requirement for promotion eligibility.

 

·         Like materials must be ordered to qualify (i.e., ten 7 Habits Signature participant kits to receive one free 7 Habits Signature participant kit). Products cannot be combined (i.e., five Leadership participant kits and five 7 Habits Signature participant kits would not qualify for one free kit).

In addition to the Buy 10, Get 1 FREE offer for manuals, facilitators also qualify for gifts with a minimum purchase of 30 manuals.  See the photo below for gift options and tiers.

This annual promotion is good for NEW and existing clients.  To learn more about our Virtual Certification Process, follow this link and watch a short video narrated by Scott Miller, CMO & GM of Client Facilitation Services or contact me by email.
 

Don’t forget, this offer expires in 5 business days!  If you would like to learn how FranklinCovey can help give your organization The Ultimate Competitive Advantage, let’s talk … soon!

Enabling Greatness One Organization at a Time,

John Vakidis

Trust - The Performance Multiplier

Yesterday I had the pleasure of joining 40 of our clients in Oklahoma for an executive overview titled, Creating a Culture of Trust.  Our Regional Speed of Trust Practice Leader, Donna Burnette, explained to these leaders how trust directly impacts speed and cost inside a team or organization.

Based on the best-selling book, The Speed of Trust, by Stephen M.R. Covey, Donna explained, if trust is low in your organization, it works like a tax.  It costs your organization more money to do the same type of work that high-trust organizations don’t have to pay.  When trust is high, it works like a dividend.  It speeds up everything your organization is working on which ultimately helps increase your bottom line. See the photos below for the formula explanation.

Trust is the performance multiplier in your organization.  Donna further explained how Trust directly affects employee engagement, the success of a merger, partnering with stakeholders, innovation within teams and more.

Trust is the key leadership competency needed today!  If your team is not performing at optimal levels, consider learning more about our Speed of Trust Process.  Seats are still available for our next executive overview on September 18^th in Dallas.  Contact me for details.

Increasing trust one organization at a time,

John R. Vakidis

Solving the Execution Challenge

A little over a decade ago, our CEO, Bob Whitman, was meeting with his executive coach, Ram Charan.  They had a conversation that went something like this…

Bob: “Ram, what do you think is the next big thing for FranklinCovey?” 

Ram: “Bob, the biggest challenge of the 21^st century is no doubt going to be execution!  If FranklinCovey can boil execution down to a few basic principles like you did for 7 Habits with individual effectiveness, you’ll hit the mark.”

So after a ton of money and research, we confirmed what Ram had to say.  Over the last decade by working with nearly a thousand implementations, our Global Execution Practice Leader and his consultant team has perfected a management process for executing strategy, known as, The 4 Disciplines of Execution. 

Clickhere to watch a 16-minute introductory video narrated by Chris McChesney.

Chris not only leads our Execution Practice across the world, but he also is a best-selling author.  His new book, The 4 Disciplines of Execution is flying off shelves.  It has become a best-seller with the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and has received a ton of praise in the business community. 

Downloadan introduction to the book here.

If you have never heard Chris speak on the subject of Strategic Goal Execution, you’re missing out.  Chris is probably one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet on the subject and he is a funny and dynamic speaker.  You can go purchase Chris’s book at the book store for $28 or you can join other leaders in your area for one of his book tour-keynote events this year ($29 each for groups of 5 or more / $49 for individuals).

 

If you would be interested in letting FranklinCovey help you solve your execution challenge, let’s talk!  We are helping organizations achieve amazing results like these and I am 100% CONFIDENT we can enable your organization to execute bettwe and increase your employee engagement through the process.

Giving organizations the competitive advantage,

John Vakidis

Pattern of Renewal

In June 2012, my colleague, Mark Murphy, and I wrote a 5-week series introducing our readers to our newest content, The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity.  You can follow this link to read all 5 archived posts.

Today, Mark is going to give you a little more insight to Choice 5, Fuel Your Fire, Don’t Burn Out.  If you are planning to attend Dallas ASTD’s 2012 Southwest Learning Summit on August 14^th, consider joining us for Mark’s breakout session on Productivity.  He is going to expand on this topic in more depth.

Want to register for this event?  Contact me for a discount code for our clients and readers.

________________________________________________________________

The Premise: We all have the potential to do extraordinary things.

The Paradox:  In today’s world it’s both easier and harder than ever to achieve extraordinary productivity.

The very same technology that makes us more productive can also destroy our productivity.  There are three main reasons.

1)      The sheer number of decisions we have to make on a daily basis.

2)      Our attention is under attack.  We get interrupted every few seconds.

3)      We live in a perpetual crises of energy.  

The Promise: There are 5 choices that, when consistently made, ensure that you will achieve extraordinary productivity in your work and your life.

Choice 5 - Fuel Your Fire, Don’t Burn Out, addresses that last of the three reasons for lost productivity. 

What do people with this paradigm do differently?  They eat, sleep , relax, and connect with other people.   Of course we all do these things, but people with this paradigm do them differently. 

Watch the following video and see if you can relate?

Mark Murphy, FranklinCovey Consultant               

Copyright © 2012 - Mark Murphy

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For more information, please join us at the ASTD SWLS event on August 14^th or make an appointment using our calendar on the top right side of this page.

Increasing renewal and productivity one person at a time,

John Vakidis

The Meeting Advantage

Welcome back to our final post of our 3-week BusinessCommunication Series.  In case you missed last two sessions, you can follow the links below to read them now:

Week1 - The Writing Advantage

Week 2 - The Presentation Advantage

Meetings are another common form for business communication.  Having effective meetings and ineffective meetings are like night and day.  Your employees will either be thankful you had them or they might fell frustrated like the group in the photo above.

There are primarily 4 types of meetings:

·         LIVE in-person

·         Telephonic

·         Web-based

·         Video

Today we are going to focus primarily on LIVE in-person meetings.  Below are a few tips to help you become successful.

·         Getting the right people involved - Identifying the right team members is crucial.  Wasting people’s time is actually costing the organization money!  Consider taking the average salary in your organization.  Then multiply that by the number of meetings you hold annually.  Lastly, take into consider the length of your average meeting.  Then, do the math! 

For example:  If you have 500 employees with an average salary of $50 per hour attending let’s say 150 hours of internal meetings a year, that costs the organization $3,750,000 in salary costs alone, not to mention productivity costs!  What if you could reduce that by 20% or more and use more company- wide memos or emails instead?  That could save you around $750K+!  Imagine what you could do with that extra cash! 

·         Begin with the End in Mind - Like a good document or presentation, you need to consider how the meeting helps you achieve your top business priorities.  You need to think about what you want people to know or do as a result of this meeting. 

·         Have an agenda, please. - This is a common theme of complaints that I hear from people when I ask what is their biggest pet peeve about meetings.  You would be surprised how many senior leaders use their authority to mandate a meeting, but have no clue as to why they are having it and neither do their employees.  You must have a few topics clearly defined, know who is going to be prepared to speak to them and try to have a timeline planned for that topic and then stick to it.  Otherwise, if you don’t people who were prepared to speak to their topic often don’t ever get to it, because of poor time management by the previous speakers in the meeting.  That is a double waste of time and it costs your organization money… twice (one for meeting time prep and another for their time in the meeting). 

·         Make a Decision! - After your meeting is about to conclude, decide what actions are going to be made based on the information shared.  Otherwise, once again, it might be another way to waste productivity and cash!

Today’s post was a high level overview to what participants learn in our MeetingAdvantage Program.  If you would like to arrange a day of training for this content for your leaders and managers, let’s talk!  If you run a Medium-Large organization with several layers of management, I’m positive that the ROI will be huge!

Enabling greatness, one organization at a time,

John Vakidis

The Presentation Advantage

Dr. Stephen R. Covey with Elizabeth

during his famous LIVE “Big Rocks” Presentation.

Welcome back to week number two of our 3-week BusinessCommunication Series.  In case you missed last week’s session, The Writing Advantage, you can follow this link to read it now. 

Presentations have been a common form of business communication for some time.  We can give a presentation at an internal meeting, on a sales call or even in the class room.  Below are a few points for consideration. 

Meetings - Keep in mind that people are making crucial business decisions based on your information.  Make sure that your point is clear and welcomes input.  If you can provide a handout with key points and place for your notes, this will help them know what to focus on during your time in the front of the room. 

Sales Presentation - A good sales presentation should be interactive with the client.  If you have done a good job analyzing what the client needs, when it’s time to recommend your solution, you can ask questions that are checking their buy in along the way.  Be prepared to adjust on the fly if needed.  Continuing down the path as a talking head in the front of the room and not addressing their concerns will kill your opportunity.

Classroom Facilitation - This is usually reserve for experienced trainers, but even leaders can be put in this position from time to time.  Knowing your content well and connecting with your audience is key!

Regardless of which situation you are in, following these few tips below can help increase your effectiveness.

1.       Design - Taking time to design your presentation is key.  Remeber to "Begin with the End in Mind."  You need to identify the needs of your audience.  What points do you want to make?  What do you want them to do a result after seeing your presentation?

2.       Check point - If your presentation requires equipment, allow adequate time to connect everything and check to make sure everything is working (sound, slides, projector, etc.)

3.       Pictures - A picture is worth …. (you know the rest).  Using a powerful image to make your point is far more effective than writing out the bullet points of your speech

4.       Keep Moving - There is power in stillness … when making your point.  After you do so, keep the content flowing and feel free to move across the room and engage with your entire audience.

5.       Build Up - When you look at a tall building, your eyes typically take you to the top.  Your presentation should do that for your audience.  As you land key points, make sure they are guiding them to the one key takeaway you want them to know.

6.       Close - When it’s time to wrap it up, review your points, restate your purpose and close strong!

These are just a few helpful tips.  If you want to watch some great presentations, I highly recommend a website called www.ted.com.  You will see some amazing presentations and I’m sure you will laugh, learn and become inspired!

If your team needs better presentation skills, I highly recommend our 2-day PresentationAdvantage Program.  This is limited to 12 participants in the classroom.  Participants will bring actual presentations that they are currently working on.  They will draft their presentation and practice segments of it over the 2-day period.  More importantly, our consultants record their sessions for them so they can see their body language, eye movement, connection with audience, etc.  By the end of the 2-days participants have the mind-set, skill-set and tool-set to create effective presentations every time!

I attended this content a few years ago and I know that it made a significant impact on my capability to deliver a quality presentation.  For more information, please request a meeting using our meeting invitation tool on the right side of this page or simply call me at 214-387-9960.

Enabling greatness, one organization at a time,

John Vakidis